Dårlig Varg
by NikaDawson
Summary: Fixed points in time and space. Facts. The laws of time were clear. Some things are simply meant to happen. No matter how much you might want to change them. So when the Doctor and his companion Rose Tyler land in the Realm Eternal, the Time Lord finds himself faced with a difficult choice. Save the world or save a friend. slight leanings towards The Doctor/Rose, mostly gen
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I Own Nothing.

**Warnings**: Blatant Misuse of Mythology, First Time Writing DW/Avengers

**Notes**: Set post season two Doctor Who episodes "Rise of the Cybermen" and "The Age of Steel". It is pre-Thor movie canon. There is also elements of a Doctor Who audio play 'The Master' for background in the Doctor's life concerning the Master.

**Acknowledgments**: Thanks to Angela for being an awesome beta. Thanks to Ash for being a sounding board and making the awesome banner (which is hosted on my LJ). Callace for providing me with the translation for the title and some dialogue. (To any Norwegian speakers who might end up reading this fic, I do know that Dårlig is not correctly translated for the use of 'bad wolf' in which I have it. I choose to use it for the DW connection when in the episode 'Doomsday' Rose and The Doctor meet up in a place called 'Bad Wolf Bay' in Norway, which when Rose spoke the first word The Doctor mistook for Dalek.)

**Chapter One:**

Rose was so bored. It had been fun watching the Doctor run around all panicked and muttering for the first hour, but after hour five or six of the Doctor running around and muttering, tinkering with the TARDIS controls and messing up his hair so that it resembled more of a hedgehog than usual, well, Rose was bored.

"Doctor...maybe she just needs a rest you know? Getting on in years. Maybe you should just let her sleep, I'm sure there's lots of lovely planets around here." She knew she sounded like she was whining but really? She wanted out of here. The earth with the zeppelins had been an odd experience, seeing herself as a dog and yeah, so she'd thought she and the Doctor had been on their way back home. Apparently, the TARDIS wasn't quite as fixed as he'd hoped, because the dimension they'd landed in wasn't quite the right one.

Sure, apparently there was an Earth. In every dimension, there was an earth with lots of little humans he'd told her through sputtering's of odd alien curses and mutterings. Maybe this one even had its' own Rose, one that wasn't some prized poodle. And different planets, that apparently, The Doctor didn't want to visit. Strange.

"No, I'm sure I can fix it! She just needs a bit more love and she'll be right as rain in no time," he said, pulling at a wire. The room went dark. "No time at all."

Rose sighed and put her head in her hands.

* * *

They went to Asgard. The Doctor could have chosen from many places on the realm of the Gods to go to, but he and Odin were old friends, in every sense of the word. Different face and hundreds of years since he'd seen the Aesir King last but the man greeted him like an old friend...well, once he'd recognized him. Only took the sonic screwdriver to convince him to let off the Aesir guards that had quickly surrounded them when the TARDIS made her last sputtering stop into the golden realm.

Landed on the Bifrost Bridge, to his great surprise. Not many could accomplish that. Rose had stared in awe at the miles long bridge of pure rainbow colors looking out at the vast expanse of space. The beautiful towering golden city of the Aesir on the distant horizon. It had not taken Heimdall long to inform his King that they had visitors.

Odin had immediately called together all the Lords and Ladies of the Aesir to a great feast. Many of the warriors from the war that had started on Midgard with the Jotuns recalled the man with the amazing machine he called the TARDIS. The humans had worshipped them all as Gods for saving them from the giants and they themselves had been awed by the Gallifreyan. The Doctor, then four hundred years younger and many faces past, had offered to take the Allfather on the one time trip of a lifetime, to which he had graciously declined.

The Doctor had been in between companions when he'd stumbled through the cracks in the void to this dimension. It hadn't been the first time he'd been to alternate dimensions, and not the first time he'd been to this particular one; sometimes it was just fun to explore the depths in the universe that his own realm didn't fulfil. The Jotuns had just begun their invasion on Earth when the Doctor had arrived, saving Odin's life when the TARDIS had, quite accidentally through no fault of his won, landed where a Jotun about to slay the Aesir had been standing. Life depths made for fast friendships, as well as the appearance of a machine unlike anything the Aesir possessed.

The Jotuns had been threatening the Earth. It might not have been The Doctor's primary Earth but it was still Earth, with all those lovely little human brains. For months he'd helped Odin and his army to push back the Jotun invasion, staying until the very end.

Odin's father Bor had died in the beginnings of the Jotun war and he had been a young King, for all his six hundred years of life at the time. Brash and foolish, he had sought advice from the Doctor on what to do about a young child he'd found in the Jotun temple. He was newly married, with a young wife and a son of his own.

_("I am weary of the fighting. And this child," he said, looking at the child which had turned from blue to the pale flesh of the Aesir, hair as dark as The Doctor's who was holding him. A natural shapeshifter, an ability which would make him easy to hide._

_The TARDIS was one of the few places that Heimdall's reach could not see. The two men stood outside in a clearing, protected from the gatekeeper's view within a limited range of his ship, with fires from the village nearby lighting up the sky._

_"I recognize the marks of Laufey, their king. This is his child. He had been abandoned there. For what purpose I do not know. It could have been that Laufey meant to protect the babe from the fighting going on outside his palace. He might have been left to die. He is small, for a giant. What should I do Doctor?"_

_Do not interfere. The laws of the Gallifreyans were clear. What is and what shall be must come to pass. The babe's innocent eyes looked at him and changed colors from blue to green. Some things are fixed in time._

_"He is a prince. You are a King. Raise him as your own," he suggested. He could see the wheels turning in Odin's mind and choked down his regret.)_

Rose looked all out of place and completely and utterly human next to the golden ladies of Asgard. Put her in a gown though and she'd fit right in, he thought. All pink and yellow. Her overalls were attracting attention from some of the maidens. Especially the Queen.

The Doctor had never met Frigga. He briefly recalled seeing young Thor with his nanny as he'd said goodbye to Odin for the last time, who'd been fascinated with the new baby brother his father had shown him, but the Queen had been absent from that farewell parting. She was tall and regal, with a cold countenance that spoke of buried affection. The perfect political woman. She greeted them warmly enough and had even deigned to smile at Rose. Who wouldn't though? Rose could get anyone to smile at her, lovely girl that she is. Even if she was dressed a bit funny for Aesir tastes. Stuffed up lords and ladies really, reminded him of Gallifrey. All a bit pomp and circumstance.

"Doctor, old friend, may I introduce my sons?" Two young men bowed briefly to them and stood up tall next to their father. "My eldest, Prince Thor Odinson, wielder of Mjlonir, forged by the dwarves and held only by those worthy of it." The broader male, with long golden locks and the beginnings of a scruffy beard greeted them warmly, bending down to kiss Rose's hand though she hadn't held it outstretched as per custom. She blushed furiously. He had a cheerful face and reminded The Doctor of the young Odin he had met, right down to the booming voice.

He needed no introduction to the second young man, younger by fifty years, roughly the equivalent of a two-year human span, Thor had been just a toddler in mind and body when Loki had been brought to Asgard. Surrounded by the golden haired Aesir, the dark haired, lanky young man, who looked all of sixteen human years old (and really he needed to stop hanging around humans so much. Brilliant creatures but he was beginning to think everyone looked human. Everyone should look Time Lord), stood out like a beacon and the air crackled around him with an energy only found in few realms. Magic.

"And this is my youngest. Prince Loki Odinson." The dark haired youth smirked at them; eyes alight with a certain curiosity. He did not kiss Rose's hand like Thor, but offered her a rose. An illusion of course. There was no matter to it. He did not yet have that kind of skill.

"Your namesake my lady." Rose giggled. The Doctor frowned. Really now...he was too young for her! Human years and all that, these two were practically babies compared to, well compared to all her twenty years.

"Hah! You seek to charm her with tricks brother," Thor's voiced asked in a jesting tone as Rose's hand went right through the flower. Loki's eyes were drawn to glare at his brother, missing Rose's frown.

Frigga interrupted them with a gentle hand on Rose's arm, "Lady Rose, I would offer you some clothes before we dine. I am afraid your traveling clothes a bit unsuited to the occasion."

Rose looked down at her overalls and pink t-shirt, then around at the ladies in their leathers and furs, braided hair and skirts. "Right...yeah I guess this is a bit...chav. Here. If it's not too much trouble?"

Frigga nodded her head to a handmaiden that had been standing behind her, off to the side. "No trouble. Sigrund will show you to a changing chamber. She will provide you with any help you require."

Rose turned to look at him; eyebrows almost all the way up on her forehead, "How did he do that?" She mouthed the words and signaled with her eyes towards the dark haired prince so that the Doctor was the only one who saw.

"Magical," he said, answering both her question and turning to address Odin and his sons, "So...what are we having? Do your people still do that roast boar with the cinnamon apples? Loved that...well, hated it really, but I can try it again. New tastes buds and all."

* * *

"Why, he is so small brother! I would think him related to you. Father has mentioned so many stories about his great warrior friend the Doctor; I had pictured him quite different. I can see not how he would have bested any frost giant, let alone an Aesir warrior in a fight," Thor said as they walked away to leave their father and his Gallifreyan friend to their conversation.

Loki rolled his eyes at the ceiling, his brother did not see the action, still muttering about slender warriors. He was not entirely wrong. Loki had also pictured his father's friend quite differently from the tales they had heard for so long. He felt odd, displaced; the magic in the air seemed to repel itself away from him as if it could not stand to touch the man. The Gallifreyans were a highly intelligent and skilled race of beings who possessed technology beyond what the Aesir could grasp. As a young child the Doctor stories had fascinated him to the point where he would dream that he lived in such a land.

He had imagined someone more somber, like a dusty old Olympian locked away in their great library of Alexandria on Olympus, but the man himself looked ordinary. Completely ordinary. Except for his eyes. They were old, older then even father's eyes. Loki wanted to know everything he'd seen. Everything he could do.

If father let him. He often showed his disapproval of his son's love of the magical arts over the more revered physical prowess of the famed Aesir warriors. Loki taught himself through books that he'd acquired through persuasion and flattery, a few words of admiration to a couple of Olympian maidens, coy glances to Atlantean sorcerers and he'd gotten many books that even Frigga did not have in her library. They were fascinating, holding more power the any creature could ever hope to achieve.

Rose...there was something odd about her. At first glance, she was a pretty, if somewhat ordinary Midgardian. He assumed Midgardian. He'd never before met one but she was no Aesir, for all her coloring, and she did not repel magic in the same way that his father's friend had. Picked up odd companions along the way, Odin had remarked at times when he told the tales. Her clothes were odd, her speech was short and clipped and she'd looked completely awed by the walls of the palace. No other being who lived in the Halls of the Gods would have ever gazed upon Asgard with such excitement and wonder.

Therefore, Midgardian was his closest guess. Warriors from the Great War said they lived in rags and huts with holes in their roofs to let out flames. The oddly rough material of her clothes seemed very close to rags in Loki's opinion.

Nevertheless, the humming. A song. It had come from around her, the back of her mind. What was it?

"Fandral," his brother's shout tore him from his musings. One of the Imbecile's Three was standing in the hall, waiting to greet his brother. Blonde and flirty, Loki could almost find his company tolerable at the best of times, about as much as his brother's friends found Loki to be, when his brother was not around to make them accept his being there.

Lady Sif was wearing a veil to cover her dark hair. She scowled at Loki for as long as her eyes could bear to look at him and then disregarded him from her attention. Volstagg was as ever, seated already in the hall, eagerly awaiting the meal. Hogun, the last of his brother's warrior friends had been sent off on a diplomatic mission to his own people. Pity, as he was the most likable of the three. He hardly spoke.

"Your highness," Fandral made a mocking bow to Loki, grinning all the while at Thor, "Heard some tale of some great honored guest? Who is it? An Elven princess? Talk of a betrothal a while back wasn't there?"

There had been. Until Loki had put a stop to that nonsense. Alfheim was a great forest of a planet and far too dirty. Magic was in great supply but the hidden passages he had begun to study in secret were far from plentiful on their realm. The elves had seen to closing them all years ago. Secretive creatures. Besides, she had been far too taken in by Thor.

"There was. But alas, it is not the Princess Freyja that is the guest. No! It is an honored friend of my father's. The Doctor!" Even Sif looked shocked and in awe at the name of the guest.

Loki smirked. There had been one thing he had forgotten, in his musings about the possible Midgardian woman and The Doctor. And that was his mysterious machine. A way to go between the passages in all realms and dimensions. And if father had not embellished, even time itself.

They had arrived by way of the Bifrost. Perhaps it was still there.

He wondered what it looked like.

* * *

"Magic? That boy did magic? Like real magic? Magic is real?" Rose was grinning from ear to ear. This place was gorgeous. The Doctor had taken her too many planets, planets made of sheer glass, planets with purple seas, but this? It was like something out of a dream of heaven. Perhaps it was. Realm of the Gods was what the Doctor had called it. He'd told her that his people had referred to this dimension as the 'Land of the Nine Realms', that he'd come here once or twice as a boy with other Time Lords who'd been fascinated by the differences in the rules of space in this dimension. Science versus magic. All very Harry Potter.

"Well...sort of. They name it magic. It's more like...highly advanced science based on genetics and universal trigger words and energy. Only a certain few can use it. And not many to that level. It's hard stuff. Gallifreyans...we can't use it. Our bodies repel it like a bad case of the flu. Had a friend who tried once. Nearly blew up his own TARDIS attempting it! Science and magic just do not mix well, not for the lack of trying. Only a few known devices in any universe have created any sort of stability between the two. Odin's got a few of them locked in his weapon's vault I believe. Brilliant stuff. " Odin had promised to have escorts waiting to come take them to the dining hall once Rose was finished dressing.

Sigrund plucked a flower from a vase on the vanity table, placing the pink colored rose into the braid she had made of Rose's blonde hair. The golden gown that she was wearing had been quickly fitted to Rose's body, one of the Queen's own. Pink and yellow. If he hadn't known, he'd never have picked her apart from any other Aesir.

"Certain few? Like Gods? Are they really Gods?" The Doctor chuckled. Gods...oh the arrogance of the creatures on this realm. Planet. All of them, from the Aesir down to the Atlantean people. Save some humans from some invaders, do a bunch of fancy tricks, have advantages of use of the Bifrost Bridge and able to convince simple minded humans that you're Gods. Never let it be said the people of this planet didn't have ego trips.

"No Rose. They're not. Your ancestors referred to them as Gods because they seemed like saviors, and the people here, well...quite a bit of plucked up stuffed shirts. And they live very long lives. Like Gallifreyans, without the advantage of the multiple get out of death free cards. But they can age, and they do die. And just like humans they have their own tales. Valhalla, the Valkyries, all that, their versions of heaven and angels. It's where the start of your Norse myths came from."

"You seem to like the King well enough," Rose pointed out, "And he seems to like you. Helped him in a war? What war?"

There was so much she didn't know about him, so much he'd done. She had always thought that the Time War had been a one-time event, the only time that he'd had to fight a full-scale invasion of any magnitude. The Cybermen had begun to open her eyes to just how much his life had been lived without her; how long and complicated it had been.

"Just a war. Long time ago. Over now. And I do. He's a good man, Odin. Makes some mistakes of course, all Kings do. But he's well enough for an Aesir. More tolerable then Zeus, now there's an arrogant, entitled little sot," The Doctor said, recalling the Olympian King. Good enough that they'd landed on the Bifrost, directly onto Aesir territory. He'd had way too many problems and debts with Zeus. And he wouldn't trust Rose within two million miles of that philanderer.

"Zeus," Rose laughed. Zeus, Greek God. One of the few mythological figures she actually knew of. Of course he was real. Who and what else was real?

Sigrund patted her on the shoulder to signal that she was all finished, stepping away to curtsy then leave. The escorts would be here soon to escort them to the dining hall. Dining with royal aliens. Her life had become so fascinating.

* * *

The food was horrid. Seriously? Didn't they have any fish and chips? The meat had been slathered in some sort of rich, thick honey and apples that had stuck to the roof of her mouth. She had seen the Doctor grimace as he picked at it, but they'd both done their best to be polite enough. Not the most discreet person, trying to push the small bits of meat into her napkin without notice. Prince...Loki? Was that his name? The magic one had seen her, but he'd said nothing. He seemed to only be picking at his own food himself. No wonder he was so skinny.

He stuck out worse than she did, she thought. Everyone in this hall was buff and blonde, a few smatterings of red hair and freckles, but mostly, blonde and tanned. He and the Doctor looked more related with their dark hair then he and his brother. Did they have hair dye in this city? Some teenage rebellion? Expression of individuality?

They were sitting with the royal family. Well sort of. There didn't seem to be individual tables with place settings like all the fancy parties, well the one fancy party she'd been to and the others she'd seen on the telly. The table was rounded and the benches went all around the hall, like a great big table of Camelot. Only the first ten seats were actual chairs, made of solid gold. For the royal family and its guests. She and The Doctor had been given two of the chairs and three of the last four had been reserved for 'the greatest young warriors of the realm'. Thor had introduced them with the moniker; Loki had given their actual names.

Fandral looked like he was about fourteen, wisps of blonde scruff coming in and curly hair, all he was missing to complete the image were spots. Maybe the Aesir didn't have to deal with pimples. He had flirted with her in a truly disastrous manner, using what must have been the Asgardian pick up line that mirrored, 'did it hurt when you fell from heaven?' It was a wonder the TARDIS could translate for her even this far away from where they had parked on.

Volstagg was fat. Truly fat. Fat layered over what had to be pure muscle. He seemed like a red haired Sumo wrestler, but he was a cheerful enough guy. Acted like any old bloke down at the pub during a game night, the Asgardian food substituting for the fish and chips. He seemed a bit older then Thor and Loki, around her own age. And Sif, the only girl that had been introduced to her at the table was dressed in a tight fitting, leather-outfitted dress. She was tall, muscled and looked at Rose with something vaguely like scorn. Her hair was covered with some type of gold veil, maybe that was a warrior female practice here? There didn't seem to be many of them around.

"It is truly a great honor to meet you Doctor," one of the warriors sitting on the benches said to her grinning mate, "We have heard many tales of your bravery and valor from the Allfather."

"Valor? Well, yes, actually that is the right word for it," The Doctor replied, that smug tone of his creeping into his voice. Rose rolled her eyes out of fondness for her alien, "What have you heard?"

"Why we have heard that you stood in a circle of Jotuns to protect one lone Midgardian. That you drove them away with some sort of small weapon," Thor's friend Sif told him. Her voice was smooth, with a hint of disbelief.

"Do you still have it my friend? Loki would be fascinated by it, wouldn't you son?" It was the King who interrupted them this time, looking up from his plate of roasted boar. For the first time since they had entered the dining hall the younger prince actually looked interested in the proceedings around him, not lost in his own head. Thor raised an eyebrow at his father, chewing his food loudly.

"A weapon father? What possible interest would I have in a weapon? That's Thor's area of expertise," there was a slight hint of sarcasm in his tone, but Thor was nodding his head in agreement with his brother.

"Oh it's not much of a weapon. Not violent at all." The Doctor reached into his trench coat, and really, why did she have to change, but he was allowed to always be in the same ratty trainers and flasher brown coat? He pulled out the very familiar sonic screwdriver, throwing it to Loki.

"Go on; see if you can work it." Loki smirked at the challenge in his voice, looking to study the small screwdriver. Rose had never seen anyone other than the Doctor be able to turn it on. Jack had tried many times. It would seem like all you'd need to do was push a button, but no. Bit more complicated than that.

Or not. The sound of a shrill noise filled the hall, one she was used to but still sent a shiver down her spine like nails on a chalkboard. The entire hall had covered their ears.

"Clever. The red button on the side is flesh locked right?" His right hand was a few shades darker than the rest of him. Like the color of the Doctor's skin.

"DNA still on there was it?" The color faded from his hand and the screwdriver turned itself off. The people in the hall slowly moved their hands from their ears.

"Only a little," he said, handing it back to the Doctor, leaning back into his chair. His green eyes glittered with amusement. He looked like the Doctor every time he came across some weird new alien. Little boy in a candy shop.

"Brilliant you are." There were frowns on many of the faces in the hall and Sif was openly glaring at the young prince. "See, not much of a weapon. Just a shrill noise. They couldn't stand it! After an hour or two of hearing it and me blabbering they just walked away."

"So, you are more of a wordsmith then a warrior then? The Allfather portrayed you in a different light," the first warrior from before spoke up. Rose frowned. Was that supposed to make the deed less awesome? He'd saved a life after all.

The banter in the hall slowly erupted back to its former merriment but Rose looked around her at the lords and ladies. Their previous awe of her Doctor was now lessened; the air of welcome towards him had changed. Only one was still looking at him with any sort of curiosity at all. She met his green eyes with her own.

* * *

Valhalla was for once smiling on him. It was not anywhere near where Heimdall could actually converse with him, far enough parked on the Bifrost Bridge that he could study it in peace. The vessel was not much to look at. Like the shrieking weapon the Doctor had tossed him earlier that night, it was a wolf in sheep's clothing. Blue and wooden, he studied the inner workings of the lock on the door carefully. A lot smaller then he expected. He had thought it would be a huge ship, but this tiny vessel seemed barely enough to carry one, let alone the Doctor and his Midgardian companion.

But he could feel it. It was old and powerful. Much more powerful than the weapon the Doctor carried around with him. Loki traced the wood with his hands. Yes, powerful, and alive. He could hear her in his head, speaking to him. The Alltonuge, the Aesir's ability to understand many languages, failed to translate her song, but no matter. He preferred the challenge of figuring out how she worked by his own wits. He knew the inner workings of the shadow paths, but how did she find the paths of time?

"You know, if you wanted to see it, could have just asked. He'd be glad to show it off. Loves it in fact," a female voice was behind him. How had she gotten there? How had she snuck up on him?

She had redressed herself in the rags that she had been wearing when she arrived and her blonde hair was coming loose from the carefully done braid his mother's handmaiden had tied it in. She was smiling at him. Curious girl.

"Perhaps I wanted to steal it," he quipped, turning around to face her. She laughed, as though she knew it had been meant only as a jest. Most would have taken it for truth.

"Steal it? Please, you wouldn't steal it. You want to know how it works too much," she said, walking over. She leaned against the wood, her arms crossed across her chest. Far to close to him. He stepped back, away from her and the machine.

"You figure that how?" It was true of course, but it was simply amazing that this Midgardian girl could have deduced that from the small time she had spent in his company.

"Cause you're a genius. And so is he. All of you geniuses have the same quirky, "I need to know' attitude. You've been dying to see it ever since we got here right?"

He could not suppress the smirk from appearing on his lips. Smart girl. The Doctor did not choose his companions as lightly as his father had assumed.

"It is fascinating. Father told me it travels through time. Not even the darkest of magical tomes can accomplish that miracle."

"Freaky is what it is. But worth it," she said, "Do you want to see inside it?"

She was offering to let him inside the Doctor's vessel. How much trust did he place in her? Was she truly as smart as he had first thought of her, to be so flippant with the offer? He frowned.

"He told me you could see it. Figured out that you'd be here. Said, 'Long as he doesn't try any of his magic tricks in there he can look at whatever he wants." She took out a key from her pocket.

He did want to see inside it, but what could there be? It was so small. So fragile looking. She opened the door, gesturing for him to follow her. A prince, following a mortal. How they would scoff at him. He did so regardless. The inside stunned him, he felt his breath catch in his throat at the sheer size of it. His face must have reflected the mortal's own awe at the sight of Asgard.

Illusion. The outside was an illusion. Illusions he knew well.

* * *

Somehow, it was alot more fun watching the young prince tinker around the TARDIS then it had been the Doctor. The awe and curiosity on his face was fascinating to watch as he wandered around from room to room and studied the walls and console, the unbridled joy of exploring something completely new and exciting. Like how she felt everytime she went off to a new planet of time with the Doctor. Awed. Sometimes Loki close his eyes as if he was listening to something. Huh. Maybe she was talking to him?

Rose could remember sometimes, vaguely, at night while she slept, the voice of the TARDIS calling to her, 'Bad wolf. Bad wolf.' What was he hearing?

"Having fun?" It had been a few hours. He'd entirely forgotten she was here, or so it seemed. Lost in his own world. She wondered if maybe there was a bit of Time Lord in this one. Head in the clouds, just like her Doctor.

"Fun?" It was asked like he was chocking down some bad tasting medicine. Or the food from dinner.

"Yes fun. Bouncing all around, studying all this stuff. Your eyes are all happy looking. Like a little boy. It's cute. You look like the Doctor. Gets all smug when he's figuring out things the rest of us little humans with our little human brains can't," she joked, sitting on one of the bars around the main entrance. He was standing near the heart of the TARDIS.

"I am studying my lady," he told her, reproachful. She giggled. The look on his face reminded her of a puppy. Trying so hard to be serious when it was clear he was having the time of his life.

"Studying," she said, plastering on her own serious face, "and having fun. Admit it."

"I admit that I am fascinated. Fun is for other pursuits. This is knowledge. It is more than fun," he told her.

He and the Doctor talking at the same time would probably drive her nuts. She could just picture it, a little protégé for her alien. She loved being with him on her own, but at times she knew she didn't understand him. It made her miss Jack. Jack had been as human as she had but so much more advanced. Just as alien.

"How old are you? The Doctor said you guys live a long time. And seems he and your father fought in a war...what? Hundreds of years ago? Are you like sixteen?" Did their race just stop aging at a certain point? She hadn't seen any old men or women in the dining hall.

"Do I look like a toddling babe to you? I am over four hundred years old," he snapped, offended.

She studied him. He looked younger than her and she knew she didn't look her own twenty years on good days, "Guess you aliens age slower then."

He nodded, "Yes. We do. I had forgotten. You mortals live such short lives. Fifty years to us can be the same as one in your lifespan."

They did. Ninety years use to seem like an eternity to her. Now it seemed like nothing. Not enough time.

"So...did you and that...Sif lady have a bad break up or something? I don't think I've ever seen someone look daggers like that at anyone that wasn't a bad breakup," she asked, trying to defuse the ice. He seemed...lonely. No one at the dinner table besides his family and The Doctor had spoken to him. Thor's friends seemed content to ignore him and the warrior girl, whose gaze had been filled with anger when it had fallen on Loki.

"Never mind. None of my business," she said quickly at the sight of him frowning at her and who knew what kind of magic he could do if he got angry enough. Maybe he could make her mute or something?

"I cut her hair." He went back to studying the heart of the TARDIS. What? Cut her hair? So, she was bald or something? Explained the veil then.

"It will grow back. It's hair. Bit silly to be so angry about. Why'd you do it?"

He looked up at her again and his eyes had lost their intensity. They stared at her in surprise. "Beg pardon?"

"Why did you do it? You did have a reason didn't you?" His expression had softened. He really didn't look four hundred years old with that look.

"No one has ever asked if I had a reason."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two:**

"I forbid it. My son is too young, too reckless. Yet too willful to go on such a trip with you," Odin declared, and The Doctor saw Rose frown out of the corner of his eye. Really now, this had been all her idea. He'd just been hoping for a relaxing few days while the TARDIS repaired itself and off they could go again.

He should have known Rose would do this. Always picking up strays. That little boy from the spaceship back when he'd had bat ears and a big nose, Jack, Mickey...why not pick up the prince of Asgard and take him for a spin in her mind? The Doctor could see all kinds of problems with it (_do not interfere_) and one of them being that magic and the TARDIS? Not such a good mix. And magic came as naturally to Loki as flirting had come to Jack, so he couldn't exactly forbid him from doing it.

Rose had used the puppy eyes to convince him. He hated the puppy eyes.

(He didn't admit to being curious himself. Years ago, for a few brief minutes, he'd wanted to make off with the baby Jotun himself and drop him off on some distant home where he'd never hear the words Asgard or Frost Giants. But that wasn't too be. Down that road led to an early death for the human race at the hands of several alien invaders, and The Doctor loved the human race. Brilliant and important.)

Odin wasn't worried so much about his son being reckless, The Doctor knew that. Knew about the plan that had formed in Odin's mind, long before it had even been a spec inside the Allfather's brain. Loki was half a son and half a pawn in this political game; loved but misunderstood and always watched carefully. At any time, Odin could both be losing his son and his pawn if Loki decided to wander off (which, if The Doctor was correct, he had several times already. Some of the books in his chambers that The Doctor may or may not have _wandered _into came from Olympus, not usually easy for the Aesir to get a hold of. Uneasy relations, lack of trade. Zeus again.)

"Really now? He's four hundred years old! If your son wants to go somewhere, I highly think he's going to go anyway...with or without daddy's approval," Rose said. The Doctor had to grin at her audacity, his lovely little human, such bravery. If any Aesir maiden had dared say that to the Allfather, she'd have been punished quite severely. He recalled one during the war that had declared that Frigga was quite plain in the Allfather's hearing...probably didn't have too much of a happy marriage with that village idiot she'd been forced to marry. Brains of a cow.

Odin of course was two steps away from shouting off with their heads, friends or not, so the Doctor stepped in, "No dimension hopping! Just some sight seeing. Never even miss him. A few relaxing days traveling around the nine realms...do him some good. After that incident with the dwarves..." His tone grew dark as he thought about it. Not all those silly human myths about the 'Gods' were true, but some were of course. The Doctor had noticed the still healing scars peppered around his mouth and Thor seemed as fond of his hammer Mjlonir as anyone would be of a brand new car.

Vicious race, dwarves. All of them. Greedy, cold, and not ones to take tricks lying down. Never play a game of poker with them.

"That incident with the dwarves as you say proves that he is too reckless. He could have died; I can not trust that he shall not cause more incidents elsewhere. Relations are too stiff at the moment to disregard jokes."

"What if I take both of them then?"

Thor was more reckless then Loki. His TARDIS might be smashed to bits. Literally. Rose and her puppy eyes and talks of loneliness. How he should relate. (He'd always wanted to study a magic user as well. The certain ones he'd come across during the war had been less than helpful in that endeavor.)

"You wish to take the crown princes of the realm of Asgard with you Doctor? In your time machine?"

Frigga spoke this question like it wasn't so much an inquiry but a statement of fact. He hated foreseers. Too prone to accept their visions as absolute truth. Too knowing. Too flawed. They saw and they did nothing to prevent their visions from happening. How much of her sons' lives had she seen? How much was she willing to let play out?

Just like him.

He looked from Frigga to Rose. Her eyes were pleading with him to agree. She desperately wanted this. What drew her to men like Jack and Loki? Was it that 'bad boy' complex? Some little lost lamb thing?

What made Rose stay around men like him? Beyond his brilliance of course.

Puppy eyes again. The Doctor cursed inwardly and he rolled his eyes to the golden ceiling, "Yeah, I do. Both of them."

She was right anyway. The Allfather could protest all he wanted; his son would find a way to come if he really wanted. Or Rose might smuggle him in. Stowaways on the TARDIS, running fugitives from Asgard for kidnapping princes. What a story to tell her mum over a nice cup of tea.

Plus bringing Thor along would prevent him from coming after them himself.

* * *

"We are too travel in this wooden box? How are we to move? I see no horses to pull it along, no wheels. Is this some jest brother?"

The Midgardian girl was rolling her eyes behind his dumbfounded brother. Loki smirked to himself. Convincing her to persuade the Doctor to let him come along hadn't been hard. A few statements about his fascination with the machine during their conversation the other night had been all that had been needed. It had never been so easy to convince someone to do his bidding before.

She was trusting.

As well as surprisingly interesting to converse with for a Midgardian. She did not understand half of the wonders the machine was capable of or how it worked but she had a certain compassion to her that Loki had never seen in a woman. She listened. It was refreshing, after years of only Thor and the Imbeciles Three to talk with in any sort of manner that had nothing to do with double-dealings. Or distrust.

He had lied of course. Lies came as naturally to him now as breathing did to everyone else. Lies mixed with truth. He had cut Sif's hair out of jealousy, but if he had not corrected Rose's assumption that the jealousy had been placed towards Thor and her affection for his bumbling brother, he was in no rush too. The truth of it all was much simpler. She had insulted him; she had become an interloper. Thor no longer saw her as a potential bedmate without her golden hair.

Sif had gotten the better end of the bargain in the end. His lips were still stinging from the punishment of the dwarves from whom he'd gotten her new hair. Dark. How she hated him for that.

Thor may no longer see her as a bedmate but her affections of a romantic nature would never, could never have been returned by Thor, for Sif was not of a queenly nature. But Thor now saw her as a warrior. A higher honor in his eyes. A queen he would one day need; a warrior was someone he wanted by his side.

_He could not tell the Midgardian girl what emotions had really motivated his actions. The truth would have made her see him for as petty as he really was_.

He was not in any hurry to lose a companion to talk to. Thor's conversations of late had turned, like any interest of the Aesir, to war. Taking his cues from Odin, he was beginning to show his despair of his brother's interests in magic. Loki was quite tired of being dragged to the training yard for proper male pursuits and being hit gleefully by Sif or one of the Imbeciles Three.

Was it too much to ask to be left alone to his books for a day? The brothers had scarcely been apart for more than a week in his entire lifespan. Now he was forced to endure the inane conversation of the four that followed his brother like loyal dogs.

It almost made him look forward to the snake like words that came out of Eris' mouth everytime he ventured to Olympus to trade with her. She was a back-stabbing, vile harpy, but an intelligent, useful one.

Thor had begun tapping at the TARDIS. Loki could hear her indignant humming in his head; she clearly was not too fond of the way she was being prodded at. He looked forward to the look on his brother's face when he saw the inside of her.

She was beautiful. Old and flawed and utterly beautiful. Not even his magic would ever be able to reach the power that he had felt in the heart of her. It was like a drug. Intoxicating.

"No jest brother. Sure you want to come? Accommodations will be a bit tight. You might even have to cling on to the sides," he teased, picturing such a sight. He heard Rose giggle. He turned to smile at her without thought.

(Thor had in fact not wanted to come. He had been heard complaining loudly at the possibility of traveling around in a time machine while he and his band of warriors had been plotting to go hunting in Nornheim. He was in his years of greatest glory seeking.)

Loki wanted to go. And the Allfather would not permit for him to go alone. Therefore, Thor would come along because Loki wanted it.

He loved him for it. And resented it. Out of the two of them he was the one father did not trust? Reckless? Had he forgotten who had sent him off to the dwarves to begin with? To appease Sif's rich mother and father?

And had he forgotten the prizes that Loki had brought back with him? Mjlonir and Gungir were fine instruments for the Aesir, hand crafted for the use of only the hands of those worthy of them.

In the Allfather's eyes, he was the reckless son.

* * *

When she'd been sixteen she'd been living with her boyfriend Jimmy. Rose just couldn't see how a four hundred something alien needed daddy's permission to be able to come. And a chaperone as well. Was it just some royalty stick? Or was the Alldaddy just going to be really that much of a buzzkill because his son apparently liked to play a few jokes?

The hair thing was a bit mean spirited. But Rose had done a few things when she'd believed herself in love with Jimmy and, far as she could tell, four hundred years = sixteen year old human mentality. Teenagers were prats.

Most of them grew out of it. She had. Her mum had been there for her and been as understanding as any mum could be. Rose pretty much figured all Loki really needed was someone to talk to. She spent a few days hanging around him now, alternating between long, awkward pauses and him talking at her like The Doctor did sometimes when he was off on some particularly enchanting subject in his mind that she only half understood.

He talked like someone used to talking to himself. Surprised when she answered back or asked questions.

So when he'd mentioned the other night about how fascinating the TARDIS was to him, he'd clearly been hinting. She wasn't stupid. She could see he was trying to place the idea in her mind. Thing was, it had already been there. She'd been trying for days to get the Doctor to say yes to bringing him along.

The Doctor could have someone else to rant to for a few days that actually understood him and Rose could visit some alien shops while he was babbling on. It was a win/win for all three of them. Well, all four of them. Taking along Thor hadn't been ideal, but he was a nice enough guy. Full of himself sure, she'd lost count of how many times he'd hit on her since she'd gotten here, but nice.

The princes were arguing.

Really, these two might be aliens and hundreds of years old, but they reminded her of every single neighborhood boy she'd ever met. Thor was the jock older brother, and Loki the emo geek. She giggled as she pictured Loki with black nail polish and glasses, dressed all in black and Thor is a rugby uniform. She could hear them arguing over her little fantasy.

"So, arm and a leg I've had to give up for this trip. Almost thought I'd have to promise him my last regeneration to get the go ahead for this," The Doctor said, interrupting her thoughts. He had arrived with a bunch of guards and Thor's friends who'd come to see them off.

Odin had demanded a lot to let them come. Not just that Thor accompany his brother, but also that they go on a diplomatic mission for him to some...Must planet or something. Had it been rust? Names here were weird. What ever happened to good old planet Jupiter? For that matter, was this planet some sort of alternate dimension Saturn or something?

The Doctor hated wherever it was they were going to at any rate. And hated being told what planet to visit. He much preferred just driving with no directions at all half the time.

"Never had to deal with someone's father before have you," she quipped, looping an arm through his. He grinned at her. This golden light was really doing a lot for his complexion; the sun was shining off his brown hair.

"First time for everything! Should have brought along your mum, she'd have negotiated him down in two minutes. Just for the want of her to be quiet," he remarked. She smacked at his arm for that remark.

"So...fire breathing lizards! Fun," she said. She'd caught something about fire and lizards in the rant about Must-Rust. Could have just been the Doctor insulting the inhabitants again.

"Fire breathing lizards? Am I to have a chance at battle and slaying some vile creature then on this venture," Prince Thor asked, as the Doctor pulled out his TARDIS key from his pocket.

"Slaying? No there will be no slaying! Piss off the locals. Really, you Aesir, all about the slayings. No wonder aliens avoid you all. Peaceful creatures. Well, most of them. Well...some of them. But no, rule one: No slaying! Of any kind. Especially not the ship! Keep the hammer in your pocket there," he said, opening the door.

Loki held her arm back and smirked, "Watch. I believe the view is better from here."

Rose raised an eyebrow at the brunette prince and then she heard a shout, "What is this sorcery?"

There should be popcorn stands in Asgard, she thought. Thor was indeed trying to slay something. Mjlonir refused to fly past the doors of the TARDIS. He wasn't happy about it.

She'd never forget the image of a muscle bound Thor with his left foot on the wall of the TARDIS pulling at a hammer stuck in thin air.

* * *

The machine was truly a marvel, Loki speculated. Her revenge for his brother's rough handling of her had been better then he would ever have dreamed. Thor was still sulking about having to leave his hammer in the hands of their father.

The ride to where ever they were going was not as smooth as walking through the shadow paths of the realm. Those paths were dark and still, and extremely slow. Time was stilled around them so that it seemed as if a being was appearing from one place to another in the blink of an eye. They were like the void. One wrong step and the traveler could be lost.

The TARDIS was a mass of swirling and bumping. Loki had to grab at the rails to keep from being jostled about. He could feel himself wanting to throw up. It was like the sensation of the Bifrost Bridge when traveling to other realms on missions, but worse. The Doctor was not a good captain of this ship. The Vessel spun around in circles and upside down at the speed of light, twisting and turning through space, all that energy passing through and around his body, filling his mind and leaving him cold as it passed.

Rose could sit with only one hand holding on to the rail. Her complexion had no hint of green to it at all. Clearly one must grow use to the method of traveling. Thor had a death grip onto the rail next to him and one on his arm.

The Doctor bounced around like a giddy mad man.

He could feel time swirling around them. It was alive and sparked at every one of his nerves. The intensity of it was overwhelming. He wanted to reach out to it but the urge to be ill from the ride was preventing him from calling upon his magic to investigate.

Abruptly it jarred to a stop. He could hear a loud, whirring screeching noise that would announce to anyone wise enough to listen of their arrival. Subterfuge was not one of the benefits of this machine. Or there was something broken.

The air of this planet felt familiar. Vaguely familiar.

"So Muspelheim. Fire giants! In and out quickly, hop hop," The Doctor said, grabbing his long coat and putting it on. He grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her from her chair. Thor groaned. He looked weak from the ride.

Muspelheim? They were in that barren wasteland? Thor and Loki had traveled there once as children during negotiations for trade with the Allfather. It was like a desert land. The inhabitants were tall, with bright red hair and an ability to manipulate the dust particles in the world around them to create flames.

Loki had heard they had a new King. The Allfather's hands had clearly been at work for this trip.

The machine had indeed alerted the Muspel to their presence. The TARDIS had landed in a palace, a throne room as tall as three floors of the Aesir's, fire reflecting off red and orange walls.

Guards with flaming torches and swords surrounded them as they stepped out of the TARDIS. Thor had brought battles with him it seemed.

"Really, is this anyway to greet guests?"

The Doctor was pulling out his little bit of paper. The one he used to make people believe he was whom he wanted them to believe he was. Loki wondered how he could replicate it.

"Ambassador for the Allfather, here to speak with your King. Surtur isn't it?"

The guards ignored him. Loki's skin tingled as he felt their black-eyed stare fall upon him, "Prince Loki Odinson. You are under arrest for crimes against the Princess Angrboða."

His brother managed to croak out between his gasping breaths, all of his body leaned up against the open doorframe of the TARDIS, "Brother, whom did you offend?"

Loki blinked, gazing at each of the guards circled around them, lost. The Doctor and Rose stared at him. Who in the nine realms was Angrboða?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes: **In Norse Mythology, the giantess in this chapter is not a Fire Giant, but a Frost Giant. I choose to retcon her because I doubt anything would have happened between Marvel movieverse Loki and a Frost Giant.

**Chapter Three**:

Muspel prisons were very uniquely built, The Doctor thought, looking around the place where he and his three companions were being kept. The walls leapt up several feet higher than even Thor stood and were made of pure, bright orange flames. Each prison cell was circular and he could see through the breaks in the flames other identical prisons, containing various prisoners, around them. The ceiling was made of brick and yet sported no signs of having ever been burnt.

The guards had passed them right through the flames, somehow unburnt after they had brought the protesting bunch down to the prison. With the guards touching them they had remained unharmed, but the second they had walked away to leave them unattended, Thor had quickly tried to walk right back out the flames. His eyebrows would be taking a while to grow back.

It had been far too long since he'd taken a companion on board that caused him to be thrown into a prison within seconds.

He was no expert in the entire history of the Aesir people. Human fallacies could sometimes cloud his brain but he was positive that despite everything, given the year, Loki shouldn't have done anything to offend this woman. Yet.

"So...what did you do?"

Loki was studying the fire next to him. Rose was trying to stop the bleeding from the burns near where Thor's eyebrows had been and was looking at Loki, slightly exasperated.

"Nothing. I know not what these men are accusing me. I have done many things in my life but I can not conceive of any slight I may have done to the Muspel people," he told her. Thor grunted.

"My brother has done many things but he is being truthful my lady. We have not been to Muspelheim in many years. They may be confused."

"Confused? I don't know...they seem pretty positive. They did, you know, throw us into a cell!"

Rose was getting that slightly hysterical screech to her voice. He saw Thor wince.

One thing for the Aesir in their favor, they certainly knew how to make an entrance. Last time he'd been locked in a prison cell, actually was the last time he'd been to Muspelheim, during the war when he'd been fighting alongside Odin. They'd come to the Fire Giants for help and what had seemed to be a good idea at the time (Fire Giants were natural enemies of the Frost Giants) had quickly turned into a very, very bad idea. Prisons had been a bit different then though. They must be trying out a new style. Or this was the old style. Hard to keep track of the timing.

_Take him_.

The Doctor spun around, searching for the voice that had suddenly spoken. There was no one.

"Doctor?" He wasn't sure which of his companions was speaking to him. One of the boys.

_Take him_.

"Where are you?" He started to pace around the cell, activating his sonic screwdriver he quickly grabbed out of his pocket. Nothing. Nothing to indicate a presence beyond their own. Was it one of the prisoners?

"Where is who? Us? We're right here."

"No Rose not you. Can't you hear it?" They were staring at him. Did he have something on his face? Had he lost his own eyebrows? He was standing rather close to the cell walls.

"Hear what?"

They couldn't hear it. Which meant it was in his head and he knew it wasn't Loki. The voice was not a males'. Who were the Muspel housing?

"Nothing! Nevermind. Fire, going to my head. Too much smoke! You know, the Muspel are actually really quite lovely creatures. Beautiful skin tones! Two hearts. I hear they even have tails, though they hide them. Only mates allowed them see them."

"How fascinating," Loki deadpanned.

Rose sighed and got to her feet. Thor stayed seated, but graciously helped her to find her balance. "Does anyone else want to focus on the real problem here? Like figuring out how to get the hell out of here? Or what they think Loki did? So we can say he's innocent and move on?"

"I concur with the maiden. I find no comfort in this cell. If I had been allowed my hammer, why, we would already be on our way away from here. Why did you bring us to Muspelheim Doctor? This venture was for my brother to see the workings of your box was it not?"

_Are you afraid Theta_?

Who could know that? The voice had called him by the name he'd not used in years. Theta, the childhood moniker before he'd become The Doctor. No one should know that name now. He was the only Time Lord left.

His mind started racing. Why had he possibly agreed to take along these two? Nothing but trouble! Aesir always brought trouble with them. Rose would have gotten over it after a bit of a sulk.

"A question I am also pondering." Loki frowned at him. It was his machine! He decided where to go! Companions should be happy to see the universe with him. He was a brilliant tour guide!

They were staring at him. Three pairs of eyes, just starting. Bit unsettling.

"Odin asked me to just drop a word to their new king while I had you two on along for the ride. No biggie! Rose is right...we need to start thinking of a way out of here. Seems like they are in no mood to talk. We can come by later. Lots later. Without Loki. You'll stay in the TARDIS."

He'd rather not come back at all.

_You never meant for it to happen. An accident. Take him_.

"Stop it", he shouted mentally at the persistent voice, "Who are you?" Silence answered him.

The flames parted to let in seven very tall, very muscled guards. They were holding chains. "Come. You have been summoned."

* * *

"You stole my heart."

Loki blinked. The Princess Angrboða, as it turned out, was an extremely tall, flamed hair Fire Giant. Her skin was the color of a rather rotted pumpkin and her beetle black eyes unsettled him right down to his bones as she stared him down. He was very certain he'd never met her before. This rather ghastly sight would have been something to be remembered.

She was rather the ugliest fire giant he had seen since they arrived here.

"Princess Angrboða, I am afraid that I simply do not understand the meaning. I have not set foot on Muspelheim since I was 150 years old. If I did steal your heart as you are indeed accusing me of, you can hardly blame a child. Are there not laws in this realm about the statute of limitations?"

A Midgardian concept that Rose had been expanding on during one of their conversations. She had taken the time to explain that was not in fact from a Midgard of people that lived in huts with holes in their roofs. She rather lived in something that she referred to as a flat. Loki imagined it as a floor with no ceiling and if so, it would be rather impractical living.

She also explained that she came from a long time after the war that his people had helped the Midgardians in. Mortals have simply evolved past their barbaric state. In some matters.

Muspelheim probably had no such conception of statute of limitations. Shame really. That law could benefit Loki in so many ways.

If it were possible for the Muspel to shoot flames from their eyes, he would be ashes on the floor from the number of rage-filled black eyes that turned to glare at him.

"You are spoken of widely across the realms as being a bringer of great deceit Liesmith." The King was speaking. He was no lovelier a sight then his daughter. His gray beard gave him an appearance of a spoiled leg of boar.

Thor sighed from his place beside him. All four of them had been brought before the royal court, shackled in flames made up of the same type of material as their prison had been. Encircled by many guards that would never have more pleasure in their lives than being able to boast that they claimed the lives of the sons of Odin.

"That may be," it was, though how it had reached all the way across the realms Loki couldn't figure, "but I am not lying. I simply do not understand how any crime I may have committed my last visit here should affect this one. Princess Angrboða seems to be suffering no ill effects. I suppose I must have been an adorable child."

"You were no child!" Her voice was harsh; the tones were as if her vocal cords had been burnt from within. All Muspel had that same tone. Screaming, it was beyond unpleasant to hear. "And were aware of what you were doing. The Aesir are treacherous lizards to insult us so! You must pay the price for your actions!"

"I'm just going to interrupt. Yeah hello," the black eyes of the surrounding Muspel stared astonished at the Doctor for speaking up in the court. They had been forbidden from defending themselves by the guards during their long walk from the cells back to the court.

"What year is this?"

Loki closed his eyes. Bad driver. Rose had warned that The Doctor often missed the mark on where he had intended to take her. By several years. On occasion by several centuries.

_There is no possible punishment for a crime I have not yet committed_, Loki thought.

He opened his eyes to look the Muspel princess over. He hoped she had not developed an affection for him. Thor chortled next to him, catching on. Loki vowed to enchant one of the fire lizards to feel the overwhelming urge to get close to the eldest prince of the Aesir as soon as he was freed from these bindings.

"Beg pardon," the Princess nearly hissed at the Doctor. He waved at her cheerfully.

"The year. I'm the Doctor. Greetings. I am in possession of a very unique sort of vehicle. Your lovely little...friend," the Doctor dramatically paused, looking over at the small guard with bright red skin and black stringy hair (small for a giant that was); "Over there is standing right next to it. Beautiful isn't she? My vehicle, not the girl." The girl? That was a woman?

"Well she's pretty as well, fascinating really, the colors of the Muspels' skin tones. Anyway, my vehicle sometimes, goes off course. Takes me to the wrong year. What year is it? Standard years? Or do you not know it? Right! Your Majesty, how long have you been king here?"

"For two hundred years."

The voice came from behind where Loki and the rest were standing. It had an eerie quality to it, sort of a croaking whisper, like a breathy song. The guards in the hall were all inclining their heads.

The speaker had very quiet footsteps. Within seconds, it had walked around them and was seated in the smallest throne to the left of the king. It looked straight at Loki with green eyes.

It was a girl child, if one could call her that. Half her body was beautiful, pale skin the color of ice and long, thick black hair. The other half resembled nothing less than death itself. That side of her hair was gray and curled like wire in thin wisps; her skin was thin and stretched over her bones like parchment that had aged thousands of years. One eye held a sort of film covering it and he realized that she could not see with it; the other held a look of serenity.

His brother was looking at her in horror. The Midgardian girl had torn her eyes away as if the very sight of her was something to much to bare.

She was beautiful. He could feel her energy, it was as if all life was sucking itself in around her and vanishing into nothing. He stared at her, enthralled.

_You are very young_, he blinked as his head started to ache and knew that only he could hear her voice, _and yet it has been so very long. You do not fear_ _me_?

He looked into her eyes. _No_.

She smirked at him.

"Liesmith," Princess Angrboða forced him to look away from the girl with the sound of her grating voice, "Gaze upon what you stole from me. Princess Hela Lokidóttir. Our child. Last you saw her, seventy five years ago, she was but a babe."

_His daughter_. Yes. He had known her since the second she had spoken.

"I dearly hope no rutting was involved in that union brother," Thor spoke. Rose was white as a sheet and nodding her head along with his brother. Loki ignored them.

The fire shackles slithered away from their wrists with a wave of Hela's hand. He rubbed at his skin, though the fire had not burnt and could feel his magic that had been suppressed by the bindings begin to return.

"You are guests in our hall. Come. Let us discuss these matters like more civilized beings," she said, gesturing to her furious mother and grandfather.

* * *

Between the cloyingly sweet Asgardian food that she'd been attempting to eat the last few days and the charred black fare that was being served to them, Rose could safely assume she had finally lost that last stubborn few pounds of baby fat that had been determined to cling on to her since she'd turned eighteen.

Her stomach protested. Silver lining.

In addition to being relatively strange looking, (she'd seen stranger aliens) they were also rather smelly. Like burned flesh when you got to close to them.

Had future Loki suffered some sort of brain damage? He was a bit of a stiff really; she couldn't see how he'd ever lower himself to make with the baby loving with that alien fireball. Sif, as unpleasant as she'd been towards Rose while on Asgard, was at least rather poised. And well, the same species. Rose couldn't even picture Jack hitting on Aggie, the name she had decided to call the fireball in her head.

And Jack had hit on ant aliens. Literal ant aliens. Walked up right.

She wanted to say that little Hela was adorable. Wanted to, but couldn't. She felt cold. Looking at her made all the nerves inside Rose's body want to crawl away and hide. Thor was clearly making an effort for his little brother's sake to be nice to the girl. He had taken to the news of his little zombie child quite well really. Less suspiciously then Rose would have figured he'd have reacted.

Aggie and the King of the Fireballs were not so inclined. They were eating but it seemed rather relieving that the Muspel couldn't shoot beams out their eyes. They'd be returning to Odin one less son if they could have and Rose would feel horrible. She'd helped him to come along after all.

"He didn't sleep with her," The Doctor commented to her quietly. Clearly he had, the evidence was right there. Unless they were having them on.

"You saying that kid's not his?" What were alien parental suits like? Was there some sort of alien DNA testing?

"No she is. Can feel that," The Doctor said, "But no sleeping together. Muspel can't mate with anyone other than another Muspel. The very touch of them would burn the skin. No, she was born some other way."

Oh great, alien test tube baby.

"I was. Though not how you are picturing Rose Tyler," the child said, looking at her with those eerie eyes. Was she a mind reader? That was freaky. She hoped she hadn't inherited that from her dad. Some of her more vivid fantasies needed to stay out of other people's heads.

"Praise Valhalla. I was beginning to question your taste brother," Thor broke in, in between consuming the meat that at least he was able to eat.

"You are no beauty son of Odin," the Princess hissed, offended. "Neither of you. You are pale and tiny. It pains me that I must suffer this for the sake of my honor and my heart's."

"You have mentioned. And yet not elaborated as to how this has happened. My companion has explained and Hela has confirmed to you that I am not yet her sire. Do you not think I deserve to know why I am to be punished?"

Oh, yes that. The Muspel refused to let Loki off the hook. Rose really hoped the Doctor was working on their getaway. All these guards, all over the place. But they'd gotten past the Cybermen. They'd get past these guys.

The seven of them were alone in one of those freaky fire rooms but the guards were all posted around. Servants kept coming in and out to refill the plates of food. The ones that were being eaten.

Rose didn't even care she was being rude. She'd handed her full plate of food to one of the servants that had come in ten minutes before.

"You stole my heart," she hissed, "Came to us with words of peace from the Allfather than slithered away in the night with treachery. Painstaking months I had carved the runes into my second heart, to heal my barren womb. You asked to be shown what spells I was conjuring. Curious, power hungry little wretch. I left you alone and did not see my heart again for many years."

Oh, bugger. She looked at him aghast. Why on earth would he steal some heart? She had to remind herself this Loki hadn't stolen any heart. She hoped he hadn't like...eaten it or something.

_ Funny little mortal. He did not. He simply touched me_.

Rose did not want to deal with freaky aliens in her head. "Stop it." She mouthed the words furiously to the girl.

"If I stole her, how did she come to be here?"

"Grandfather could not be around me anymore. I was an uncomfortable truth he did not want to see. He had me brought here. He did not inform you," she said, staring at the past version of her father.

"Father took you from me?" Loki's voice had taken on that sad note that pulled on Rose's heartstrings the first time they had really talked. The night he'd confessed that no one had ever taken the time to talk to him about what was going on in his head. She frowned. Odin shouldn't have done that, taken the girl away from her home like that. It was cruel.

_Was it_?

"He did. Had the sense to return what was mine! Unfortunately, you have tainted her. She cries for you in the night. Arrangements will be made," Aggie spat out.

"Arrangements?"

"For the wedding. We shall marry. It will return to me my honor, it shall be your punishment for your theft, and it will sooth her. I will allow your brother to be witness."

Thor sputtered, enraged. Rose stared at her horrified. She wasn't serious?

"You dare..." Thor started to shout, rising from his seat, gesturing with one fist and clearly wishing for his hammer. Loki placed a hand on his arm to stop him.

"I would rather be beheaded."

The King smiled, showing his black teeth, "That may also be arranged."

Rose gaped. She grabbed at The Doctor's hand, silently begging him to do something. He was the genius in the room. He needed to get them out of this mess!

He wasn't saying anything. Loki wasn't backing down. If something didn't happen, heads were going to be rolling. The King was gesturing for the guards to come in.

"He can't marry you," her voice came out all hurried. What was she saying? "Because...he's already married. To me!"

What?

Thor sat down in shock. The Doctor smiled. Loki stared at her, green eyes a mixture of astonishment and relief. She grabbed on to the edge of the table in a death grip and felt sick. Everyone was staring at her. Little Hela was smirking.

"_Don't. Don't saying anything_," she foolishly thought in the child's direction.

"Is he? Well then, that changes things," the King mused aloud. "Guards, remove the woman's head."

Rose's heart leapt into her throat. Thor grabbed his dinner knife and jumped up again. The Doctor stood in front of her like a shield.

"I would not do that if I were you. She is beloved of her people. Attempt to and you will be declaring war in the unjustified killing of a royal guest in your house. Two worlds will be at your doorstep. Do you mean to risk it?"

Loki stared at the Muspel, a challenge clear in his eyes, no hint of the lie he had just spoken.

"For my daughter's honor I would risk everything Liesmith. My very kingdom," the King replied. The guards were standing with their spears held out. The King held up his hand, signaling them to stay back.

Rose gulped. Her mum would never know what happened to her.

"Admirable. Yet foolish. Why not simply wait? Rose is mortal. Her life is short. Hela shall not be so very old. If you would accept, I swear that I shall return and wed your daughter for this crime when she has died."

Rose wanted to shout at him to shut up. The words had gotten stuck in her throat, as if something was muting her. Thor looked to be having the same problem. He was staring at his brother and gesturing with the knife in his hand, mouth moving.

"Would you swear it? With a blood oath Seiðr?"

Loki smirked, holding out his hand. It was bleeding. He had cut into it with his own dinner knife, "I swear, in the name of my father and his father, in the name of my offspring, that I shall return upon the death of my wife, Rose Tyler of Midgard, to marry the Princess Angrboða. By my blood," he let his blood drip in to a bowl that was in the middle of the table, "shall it be done."

Aggie cut open her own hand, accepting.

They were free to leave.

* * *

"You shouldn't have done that," Rose protested, looping her arm through Loki's as they were escorted back to the TARDIS. He was doing better. He only flinched at the contact for about a second or two.

The Doctor could not help but want to hug the young prince himself. Even if it was the trickster's fault that they'd gotten into this mess in the first place. And maybe a little bit of his. Two hundred years. How had that happened?

Hela had opted to escort them back herself. He wished that she hadn't.

"Nor did you have to tell them that you were my wife. I was in your debt. I could not allow harm to come to you out of your desire to spare it towards me," he told her, smiling. Thor nodded. He had given Rose a hug out of gratitude for saving his brother's life. Loki had to pull him back before he'd accidentally crushed her bones together.

Aesir rarely considered their own strength.

"But now you have to come back. And marry that...thing!"

Loki laughed, "Not as much as you would think Rose. I will never marry her."

The Doctor had already known that. He grinned at Rose's look of confusion. Clever boy.

"I promised to return to marry her upon the death of my wife, Rose Tyler. But you are not my wife Rose," he explained. The Doctor watched the realization light up in both Rose and Thor's minds. She laughed.

"Ever clever with your words brother. I confess myself relieved that this shall not have to be explained to father and mother," Thor said.

They stopped at the TARDIS. The Doctor stroked her, wanting to get off this smoke infested heap.

"I am sorry Hela. That I shall leave you so soon," Loki was telling the child as he pulled out his key to open the doors. Thor shot his niece a quick goodbye. Rose ran into the TARDIS as far away from Hela as she could manage.

Completely understandable. The Doctor stood impatient for the goodbye.

"We shall meet again soon father. I know this," she said, holding out her hand. Loki bent to kiss it farewell.

_Tell me Doctor? Shall you let him go blindly to the slaughter? As you have done so_ _many_?

"_Be quiet_," his mind shouted out to her. He could feel her poking around, bringing up images he had long wanted to forget.

She no longer appeared like a child to him. She was a woman. The Doctor watched Loki step away from her, to follow his brother and Rose back into the TARDIS.

The woman stared at him with her cold eyes. She believed herself to be death. She was nothing more than a parasite.

A flash of a grin, the image of the woman was gone and only the child remained. He closed the door.

_Take_ _him_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**:

It seemed that even Time Lords held a need for sleep. Loki himself was exhausted but pushed the feeling to the back of his mind. The day had been long, and though he should feel more shock at the revelation of his future child, all that was there was a strong sense of pride, _at the child herself or the power she held_?

For she was powerful. She had been created out of power, and had that been his future's self-motivation in taking the heart of the Muspel princess? He did not know. He could conceive of nothing else.

_"You are tempted to change our fate, now that you are aware," Hela said, looking at him with solemn eyes. No one else could overhear them. "Do not. Let it happen. For it is meant_ _to_."

The Doctor had showed Thor to the room they would be staying in on their travels here and then went off to wherever he choose to sleep himself. Loki had to school his face with all the concentration he had not to showcase his awe at the effortless way the machine added space and rooms that had not existed before (or had they?), all around them. An entire city could be housed in this innocent looking vessel. An entire planet.

They could have had their own rooms but Thor had decided to stay closer to him. Loki wondered if that was Thor's need to watch him, waiting for something else to be blamed due to Loki's magic. He had said nothing but he knew that Thor was blaming Loki's practices on their recent troubles.

Thor did not understand Loki's passion. No one did.

It had not taken long for Thor to fall asleep. Loki had quickly and quietly left the room. He could feel the energy from the ship suppressing his magic. They had an adverse effect on one another. That would have to be dealt with if Loki was ever to manage to combine the two and learn the secrets of time travel.

There would be a library somewhere on this ship. Did it house tomes that the Doctor had acquired for himself? Like many things could a simple book be called upon and be conjured into the wisher's hands on this vessel?

It would have been easy to lose himself in these halls. He let her song guide him.

He was not the only inhabitant who was foregoing sleep.

She had her feet propped up onto the ships steering controls and was holding a book in her hands. He could not see the title from here but it was strangely made. The cover was elaborate and seemed to be made out of some sort of paper, rather than leather. Of Midgardian make and so, rather useless to Loki.

He did not understand why she had placed herself in harm's way for him. He was a stranger to her. Warriors had long been telling of Midgardians and their lack of honor, rarely that they would spare the life of an enemy or risk their own for their friends.

She was a rare creature.

So unlike the women that Loki had known in his life. Simpering, useless fools who cared for nothing beyond their homes and children. Or their riches and status. Thor fawned all over the maidens of the court, and they fawned over him as well but he was not impressed with them. Sif held his favor only because she aspired to be more than her fellow female counterparts.

He could admire it, even whilst he hated her for the attention his brother showered on her. Why should she hold his respect for being more than a woman was expected to be on Asgard, and Loki hold his father's scorn for finding power in the ways that called to him? _Ergi_.

Conflict could be won by more than bloodshed.

"You going to keep standing there or you going to come over here and keep me company?"

She had been aware of his presence. He would have to tread more quietly next time.

Not many desired his company for idle chat. Yet she had sought him out while on Asgard. She was inviting him to sit with her now. He felt out of his depths, in water he did not know how to wade through.

His dealings with people did not usually include genuine companionship. That was for Thor, who inspired actual loyalty and love in people. Even in him.

He decided to sit.

"Want a book," she asked, gesturing to the pile of books she had next to her. They were all of Midgardian make, same sort of paper, colored with imagined covers. He grudgingly admitted that Midgardians had some skill in life like art, for the paintings seemed almost alive  
.

"No," he answered, tracing his fingers along the console, looking at her through his eyelashes. She was smiling. He could feel the energy from the ship making the skin of his fingers tingle with an electric shock. His magic wanted to push it back. Curious.

How would he meld the two to work together?

"My lady," he began and she made a sound at him to indicate that she was listening, eyes still on the words in the book, _To Kill a Mockingbird_, the title said. (What was the point in killing a harmless bird? Why did mortals need books on how to kill such small creatures?)

"What keeps you awake tonight?"

She looked up at him. He had not yet noticed that her eyes were of a green color, similar to his own. He was the only one on Asgard to possess such a shade of green. It had distressed him as a child. When he had first begun to learn shape shifting he had turned them blue to match his brother's.

It did not take him long to change them back when the Imbeciles Three had mocked him for it.

"_Be proud of who you are Loki_," his mother had told him, "_You are a prince of Asgard. Do not forget it_."

"Couldn't sleep. Called my mum," she told him. He did not know what called meant. Far as he could see, her mother was not on board the ship and Midgardians had no such abilities to call people through their minds.

She handed a small device she retrieved for her pocket. It seemed like nothing, and yet held small bits of electrical energy.

"It's a phone. We use it to talk," she said. Midgardian science. How fascinating. She explained how it worked. Primitive but more advanced then he would have believed them capable of.

He told her as much. She smiled, "Yes we apes have advanced where I'm from. Walk upright and everything." She was sticking her tongue out at him.

"I suppose you could not stay barbarians for all eternity," he acknowledged, causing her to laugh.

"Why did you call her?"

She smiled, "What? You telling me you never just want to talk to your mum after you almost get killed by a bunch of fireball aliens?"

No. Not that he would ever acknowledge. Men of Asgard did not cry to their mother's skirts because they had been afraid. Men of Asgard should never be afraid to die. How that had been drilled into his mind since the time he was a child.

Rose was not a man of Asgard. She was a woman of Midgard, one different from the Great War. Loki should not forget that.

The song was humming around her. Right in the spot of her brain that had called to him the first night they had met. Like his magic, the energy was being forced back by some force.

"Do you often end up in situations where you are in mortal peril traveling with him?"

Thor would love it. If being along with the Gallifreyan brought Thor a battle, he could find joy in the bloodshed and bring back his songs of valor to share with the other warriors.

"More then I'll admit to her. Go ballistic she would. Cybermen, Daleks, werewolves! Actual werewolves! And now alien Gods," Rose began, "Never think about telling her. All the things I've seen with him. Planets and aliens and all the danger. It's worth it. Being with him."

"The monsters your mother worries about in the night," he mused. Rose lived for the danger of the life The Doctor brought to her. It thrilled her. Light had sparkled in her eyes unlike when she had explained the phone. Similar to Sif's love of battle.

"Suppose you could say that. Not the first. So, what about you? All your people were going on about the war The Doctor helped in. What was that like?"

Loki smirked, "I do not know my lady. I was not yet born."

"Rose," she said firmly, "It's Rose. No more of this my lady stuff. Makes me feel like I should be at some grand ball. I'm sure you know all about it. Come on," she poked him with her shoe. He scowled at her.

"Tell me a bedtime story."

* * *

He could think of it as practice. He was eventually going to be a daddy after all. Little girls demanded bedtime stories. Even little zombie ones she figured. Did Asgard have fairy tales of their own?

It was like pulling teeth to get him to open up and talk. But she was use to that. The Doctor talked all the time. But it was rare he talked about what really mattered to him.

Thor was an open book. During the nights on Asgard he had talked about everything and he held nothing back. The two brothers were like the sun and the moon and the outside reflected their insides. All quite poetic really, if Rose had ever cared about poetry classes.

After some needling, he broke down and began to talk. He talked like a script and it brought pictures to her mind. The Aesir called the Jotun monsters, gigantic blue beings that lived within halls of ice and the very touch of them could burn. Greedy, power hungry beings who tried to claim land that was not theirs by right. He talked of the giant dire wolves they had brought with them to Midgard to help them in their battles and the prayers of the people that Heimdall, the gatekeeper of the Bifrost had heard.

Many of the Gods choose to ignore their pleas for help. Yet not the young King Odin. He gathered his warriors and marched with thousands to fight against their ancient enemy and protect the Midgardians from invaders they could not fight against. Long years the war had gone on until finally, Odin had lost his eye and the giant King Laufey had lost the prize of his Kingdom. A casket.

He told her that it was still housed in the weapons vault of the palace to this day.

She tried to picture her Doctor helping in the middle of this war. Protecting humans. He wouldn't have helped the Aesir because the Jotun were enemies. He would have because of the humans.

"I wonder why," she said, after he was done. She smiled at his look of confusion.

"Why my...Rose?"

"Why they wanted Earth. People don't just wake up one day and think, "I'm going to go conquer a planet I've never been on. I've met loads of aliens, there's always a reason."

Loki shook his head, black hair falling into his eyes, "The Jotun are monsters my lady. Do such beings know of reasoning?"

She scowled, "Even monsters have feelings. I've met Daleks. They killed all the Doctor's people in his own great war. He's the only one left of his kind. For a while, we'd thought there was only one left of the Daleks. It was dying and all it wanted was to feel the sun. This race...they kill and they kill and they kill. It's what they believe it."

"But it's last wish was to feel the sun."

His eyes were holding a sad look in them. Probably thought she was naive. Maybe she was. Maybe these Jotun were worse than she could think of. She closed her book. _To Kill a Mockingbird_.

"Here," she said, handing it to him, "Try it. I think you'll like it." He looked like he wanted to protest. Probably thinking an earth book was beneath him or something. Arrogant prat. He took it from her anyway.

She ruffled his hair as she got up from her chair.

"You know, next time, just ask him to explain things to you. That's why you wanted to come right? To learn? You don't have to sneak out in the middle of the night like a creeper."

He nodded.

"He won't bite you. He's not that kind of alien," she told him.

* * *

_( Gallifrey was burning. There was nothing he could do. All around him, he could hear the screams of the ancients, the battle cries of the enemy. He couldn't stop it._

_He had to do this. The bringer of death. Millions of lives. They were going to be stopped. They had to be. If he didn't, more would die._

_A choice between millions or billions. Trillions. The universe._

_For The Master this would have been an easy choice. Let them burn. Play God. I am death and the end is here for my enemies._

_This had not been foretold. There was no rulebook._

_He pressed the button_. )

The Doctor woke up gasping. Sweat was pouring down his face.

He had not dreamed of Gallifrey in a long time. Since Rose.

The girl had brought it out of him. Muspelheim had been a mistake. Agreeing to Rose's request had been a mistake.

He wanted to change the course of this history. It would be so easy, just slip back through the cracks and he could save Loki, prevent him from madness, like he'd never been able to save the Master. Two mad little genuises, different from the rest of their people, driven to gain recognition through destruction by the ones that loved and betrayed them. So many had and would die at their hands.

But if he saved Loki how many more would die? How many billions would never exist at all? This earth needed the Avengers to protect itself from the many who would seek to destroy it and it had been written down that Loki would be the catalyst that would form them together. If Loki strayed from his path of destruction, then a version of Ragnarock would truly come. Not for Asgard, but for the earth.

_But who am I to decide who lives and who_ _dies_?

* * *

Thor shot a look over at Loki from where he was practicing with Rose and laughed at his brother's frustrated expression. It was rare to see Loki so stumped when it came to matters of the mind. Loki wanted to scowl at being the source of his amusement but he was in a rare mood. He grinned at his brother.

Magic, unfortunately, did not mix well with Gallifreyan technology. Despite his best efforts within the past month of being on the TARDIS with the Doctor, he could not yet figure how to cast more then the most basic of illusion spells within the walls of the vessel. Nor how to combine his magic with the lessons that The Doctor had been giving him. Maybe it could never be achieved?

The man was a labyrinth to figure out, much like his Gallifreyan science. The challenge was making Loki's blood sing in his veins and despite his best efforts to remain aloof, it was hard to in the face of Rose's easy affection and the Doctor's enthusiasm for knowledge; the Time Lord's emotions and his secrets. It was thrilling.

He had waited for her to begin to distrust him. Like all who meet him eventually do, if not straight from the start. But every day that past she seemed to open more and more to him, dragging him along with her when he was not engaged in studying the TARDIS and the library within the vessel's walls, listening to the Doctor's tales of his people, and forcing him to enjoy the sights of the various planets and time periods that he took them to with her.

The planets were none new to Loki or Thor. Odin had strictly forbidden the Doctor from taking his son beyond the nine known realms of this dimension. Though a man not usually prone to following rules past down to him by authority, Loki quickly figured out, he was none the less the Allfather's friend and had complied.

Days past into weeks and soon into a month. She still sought him out. It was as if, without looking, Loki had gained something beyond his comprehension. A friend. Not an ally, but someone who cared about him not out of obligation of blood, but out of simply affection.

It confused him.

They had explored within the forests and walls of Vanaheim. She had helped him with mischief that involved Thor and a dress in the sight of the Lady Freya, his former and unwanted betrothed. She had drug him to shops within the various ages of Midgard. She had laughed with him as Thor continued to be violently sick each time the TARDIS swirled around in the Vortex as they drifted from place to place.

She had forced them both to consume something called fish and chips. It was, to Loki's surprise, palatable. Thor had loudly demanded for more. They had stocked up on several purchases of it and kept it in the kitchen that the TARDIS held, but was rarely used.

He had helped the Doctor escape the horrifying task of talking to Rose's loud and talkative mother on the phone during each call home by disguising his voice.

When Rose had been captured to be the bride of a dwarf on Nidavellir Loki had so recently offended when he had acquired Mjlonir and Gungir for his father and brother, Loki had offered him his head in exchange.

In the dwarf's timeline, it was the first time he had seen Loki. His anger over being tricked by Loki's wording 'if you can do no harm to my neck' would hold for years.

He confessed that it had given him great pleasure to see Thor cause the dwarf deliberate injury on their way out of his home back to the TARDIS with the use of a butter knife his brother had managed to find somewhere. And an even greater feeling of pleasure when Rose hugged both of them in thanks for rescuing her from the dwarf. Loki had not been hugged in many years, not even by his mother.

She played loud Midgardian music at night that hurt Loki's head and made him wonder as to the sanity of her people. The inane and pointless lyrics against the loud beat made him irritated.

She tried to teach him what she called dancing. It looked more like a seizure in Loki's mind. Thor had declared that she had poor form and that they must teach her the ways of the Aesir.

His brother had started by trying to teach her basic hand-to-hand combat. A week of lessons and she had yet to land a hit. Loki smiled watching them.

It was like being a child again. When it had just been him and Thor, before they had grown and drifted, before they were expected to be men. Before the Imbeciles 3 and Sif had usurped his place in his brother's affections.

"Oy! Pay attention." The Doctor's indignant voice sounded in Loki's ears as the man finally realized that the young prince had not been listening to him rant on about the delicate balance of atoms and magical energy for the past five minutes.

He was using his father's Tesseract for purposes of study. Odin had granted the Doctor use of it in his travels, for it was one of the few weapons in the cosmos that perfectly balanced magic and science.

None but it's maker knew how exactly it was built or worked. Not even the Doctor. Loki had been fascinated with it as a child but had never been allowed near it. The treasure vault was one of the few places he could not find an easy path inside.

Being so near it should have been all he focused on. Helping The Doctor to crack open the mysteries of the blue cube.

Rose cursed at his brother as she managed to almost fall to her knees trying to land a hit at his brother's wall of stomach muscles. Her blonde hair was done up in a messy ponytail that even the warrior lady Sif would have been appalled to sport when just in training measures.

Thor laughed at her, "You are not standing right for your stature Lady Rose. Place your feet differently."

Despite how many times she asked, Thor refused to her refer to her as anything less than Lady Rose.

Loki called out to her, "He is teaching you wrong Rose." He walked over to her, helping her fix her stance. He, like her, was slender and thin. She was smaller than him but her fighting style would be similar.

"Well, I'll just be over here then! You three have your fun, acting like apes. Secrets of the universe, figure them out myself!"

Rose stuck her tongue out towards the Doctor.

* * *

"I feel that I must offer you my most sincere gratitude Lady Rose," Thor declared, as quietly as he was able a little while after Loki had told them both that they were boring him. He had wandered back to the pouting Doctor to study the blue glowy cube that the Alldaddy had let them borrow.

Rose laughed and grabbed the bottle of water she had left on the floor of the TARDIS. During her poor attempts at hand-to-hand combat, she had managed to knock it over.

"For what," she teased, "Not managing to land a single blow? Afraid of one day being bested by a girl?"

He smiled sadly. During the past month, Rose had seen many emotions on Thor's face. Anger, challenge, joy. Mostly joy. Sadness was something new. It unsettled her in the way that the Doctor being sad unsettled her, for both had such cheerfulness most of the time.

"For what you have done for my brother. It has been a long time since I have seen my brother enjoy the company of others as he does yours. You have reminded me of days past. It brings joy to my heart to see."

She looked over at the Doctor and Loki who were both bent over the glowy cube and arguing back and forth. A lonely boy. That was what he'd been when she met him.

"I have tried to include him in my quests but my brother...puzzles me. I do not understand him. You, The Doctor, you have given him something that I confess that I can not," Thor said, regretful. Rose knew how much he loved his brother, she had seen it.

She had also seen the wall that was between them, pushing them away from each other. It wasn't just that Thor didn't understand Loki, or that his friends (though it seemed that it could not occur to Thor who loved his brother so) did not accept him. No.

There was the jealousy. She knew Loki was deeply jealous of his brother, perhaps more than most younger siblings usually were in her, admittedly, limited experience when it came to siblings.

Royalty had a lot more to be jealous of though. And Loki could be a right royal prat at the best of times.

And there was Sif to consider. She wondered if Thor knew. Probably not. The man seemed strangely blind to the affections of other's when it came to a romantic nature.

"It's nothing really," she told him, but she knew it wasn't. Loki had needed other's that understood him and his people didn't. Odd duckling in a sea of golden bulls. He was just different and they all knew it.

Aliens weren't so terribly different than humans when it came to the oddballs among them.

"Lady Rose, it is everything."

He was completely sincere. Rose blushed furiously in the face of his gratitude. She'd never been on the receiving end of such praise before. Too much more of that and she'd have an ego big as the Doctor's.

"Your mother named you well, Lady Rose," Thor told her, gesturing to her blushing cheeks, "You remind me of the roses that grow in my mother's gardens. All of them, so very pink and yellow. I confess, I've never known a maiden to choose such bright colors for their garments with such frequency as you do."

"Nor wear pants quite so much," Thor said, frowning with a hint of puppy like confusion. Rose laughed. No, certainly not many of those Aesir birds' would dare wear pants. The jeans would have caused half of them to swoon into a dead faint.

Loki would probably cackle himself to death seeing the entire court of Aesir ladies dressed like Rose.

"Well I think my mother just liked the name," she confessed, pushing back strands of sweaty blonde hair and hoping that her blush was going away, "We humans don't have meaningful names. Celebrities are naming their babies Apple or Peach or... I don't know...Toilet Seat. That's probably happened. Somewhere."

"I believe, Lady Rose," he said, "That you are the strangest maiden I shall ever meet."

* * *

It was really difficult to be cross with someone when you were discussing the fundamental laws of the universe. It had been a very long time since The Doctor had any companion keep up with him in quite the same speed and understanding as Loki.

Weird to think that he had become a companion, rather than the guest that Rose had dragged along.

Would be easier to keep thinking of him that way. There were moments, like watching the three of them mock fight and wreck things around his TARDIS control room that The Doctor forgot who he had in his ship.

Forgot who Loki would become.

Studying the Tesseract was like being back in school, working with Koschei, the young boy the Master had been, and the others in trying to be smarter, better, cleverer then the rest of the Time Lords. They had wanted to rule the world.

The unattainable dream of advanced children with no other outlet. Knowing that you were smarter than the rest, that you were born to be followed and to lead. That power was addicting.

A person could easily be consumed by it. Many of his fellow Time Lords had, himself included.

"So, where to next," he announced to the three companions gathered around him. He mimicked the voice of a conductor on a train or a bus. Rose laughed.

"My brother has chosen the last three places we have visited. Lady Rose the four before that. I request that we see something of the great bravery of the people of Rose's homeland. Surely the Midgardians have acts of valor as well as these schools Loki has become so fond of visiting," Thor announced. Loki scowled at him.

The Doctor had taken Loki to the University of Milan when it first had been built. To Oxford and Cambridge and Penn. To the library of Alexandria (before the Olympians had amassed all their magical strength together and dragged it to their own realm) and universities on every realm in this universe. Thor had been taking all this without great complaint surprisingly.

The Doctor probably owed him one trip. Maybe see some Gladiators? Been a while since he'd been to Rome. Rose loved the markets there.

A few twists of some buttons and knobs, then he grinned and spun around. Rose was making fun of Loki's pouting. Thor grabbed onto a rail trying to keep from being sick.

The TARDIS lurched to a stop. "Well, last stop of the SS TARDIS. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Off!"

He opened the door.

Soldiers stared at them with wide eyes. Three of them. Holding guns. Dressed in ally jackets of WW2. Rose groaned.

"Just tell me this isn't Cardiff," he said to the men.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter** **Five**:

On the bright side, it wasn't Cardiff.

On the duller side of the cloud, they had wandered right into an army base on the outskirts of London. During WW2. With an alien box that suddenly appeared out of nowhere and three witnesses.

Whom The Doctor couldn't convince that they were phone booth inspectors and that the box had always been there, the men had just been too drunk to notice it. No, these men had some dealings with alien phenomenon.

The men were at least nice enough to be polite when they had been escorting them away with guns and surrounding the TARDIS. Rose had to step on Thor's foot when he had started to announce loudly to the men that they dared to arrest the sons of Odin, and Loki had subtly cast a spell to mute his brother from alerting everyone around who they were.

Unfortunately, they were not in the hands of UNIT, an organization that knew the Doctor well. This was something else she gathered from the mutterings she'd been able to catch from the men guarding the cell they'd put her in.

It was a pretty comfortable cell truth be told. They'd separated her from the boys and put her in a little room that at least had a chair to sit in and a few books to keep her from being bored.

The man guarding the door had been one of the three to see them arrive. He'd introduced himself as Sgt. James Barnes.

He was nice enough. Bit quiet, stared at her suspiciously. Being in a war, she couldn't blame him all that much. Cute too, least she had some scenery to look at while she was bored out of her mind.

She'd rather be seeing her boys' talk their way out of this mess then read books she hadn't even wanted to read in school.

There were a few newspapers lying around the room. War pictures. One had an article about some war hero named "Captain America" dressed in a skintight costume. Rose giggled. Jack would have loved to see that.

"That outfit looks rather impractical for battle. Midgardians have some odd notions of protective clothing," a sarcastic voice said from somewhere next to her. Rose's eyes widened when she saw Loki casually lounging in another chair near hers.

"What..." she gasped, looking at the soldier. He continued to stare ahead, no indication that he'd heard or seen Loki at all.

Loki smirked at her, "That boy will only see if I want him to Rose."

Right. His little teleporting trick or whatever. She knew he wasn't really sitting next to her but she hadn't known he could control who saw him and who didn't.

"What took you so long," she hissed, not wanting Bucky to hear her and think he was guarding a nutter, "I've been bored out of my skull here for an hour! How are we getting out of here?"

"I had to wait till one of them said where they were keeping you. I am not yet skilled enough to be able to simply find you wherever you may be," and didn't he sound sullen about that little bit, "The Doctor is being rather insistent that the soldiers contact something called UNIT. Or he had been until it occurred to him that this UNIT does not exist here."

Right. Of course UNIT wouldn't exist here, Time Lords didn't come here. Or maybe they had but they didn't anymore and The Doctor usually had stuck to his own universe, or so he'd implied. Coming here was always a bit of a mix up with the driving.

"From what I have been able to gather, they believe that we may be a part of some hostile organization entitled HYDRA. They are covert. If I did not know better I would believe that they were Olympians, as brilliant as they seem to be at not discussing important information in front of prisoners of war."

Loki certainly held no love for the soldiers who were holding them. He looked disgusted, as if confronted with the sight of his brother's friends cavorting with pigs, at the soldiers' ability to reveal everything within his hearing.

Rose giggled, then blushed at the quizzical look James Barnes shot in her direction, "Not everyone has your ability to ease drop you know. Give them some credit. They managed to capture us after all. Little humans."

"Simply because someone thought it best not to let Thor take care of the first three little humans before we'd been surrounded by more," he grumbled, glaring at her in accusation.

"They had guns! And they'd have used them," she protested, as quiet as she could. The look on Barnes' face was getting suspicious.

"That silly Midgardian tool would never have harmed an Aesir. Stung a little perhaps, but Thor has fought foolish battles with gaping chest wounds. Small holes would not have hindered him," Loki told her.

He pulled over the newspaper to flip through it. He had that intent look on his face, which told Rose that what ever was going on in his head, it wasn't that he was looking for the funny pages.

"Well I'd rather not have to deal with your brother sulking. The Doctor's not actually a doctor you know, who was going to be getting them bullets out?"

He nodded at a picture of a bunch of young girls in a protest rally, holding up signs that were saying 'bring our soldiers home', "That will do."

"What will do? What are you talking about? Loki," she hissed, grabbing at his arm. He shook it off gently and started to trace the photo, muttering something that didn't sound like a prison song.

Barnes was staring at her like she was a nutter. She attempted to smile at him. Probably came out looking more like a grimace.

She fought to control her expression as Loki's hair started to grow longer and take on a blonde hue to it, similar to her own. His clothes slowly faded to be replaced by an outfit that matched the women in the photograph.

Seriously, what was he...she...whatever, what was Loki playing at?

"Miss," an American accented voice. Not Loki speaking. Barnes was moving over to her, holding his gun like it was the only thing standing between him and being mauled by some crazy alien.

Like she was the crazy alien instead of just hanging around a bunch of them.

She opened her mouth, trying to find words to say that would not end up making him want to shoot her and claim it an accident when there was a knock on the door that drew his attention away from her.

He closed the door and quickly locked her in from the sound of clinking that had gone on.

When she turned to look back at Loki, well, he was now a good-looking woman. The kind that Rose would normally feel in competition with to be standing next too. Blonde hair, gorgeous blue eyes (was that the color of Thor's eyes?), slender looking body. Rose wondered when her life had ended up this strange when her male friends just became women with a few weird sounding mutterings and she could take it in stride.

He was studying his chest, "Do you think this will do?"

"What? What are you...are you mad?" She wouldn't have minded having them actually. They kind of looked the same size. Wait a minute. Did he steal her bra size?

"I do not know what these ants like to look at, will they do?"

"Why do you even need to know that?" Rose hoped that Barnes and whoever else was outside the little cell room couldn't hear her.

Loki smirked, "Curious. I would like to know what Hydra is and why these little boys think they are a threat. Midgard should still be a protected status planet under the strict orders of the Aesir and my father. If there is an alien hostile here, I would like to know what we are dealing with."

That made sense. Something the Doctor would have liked to know himself. Maybe he'd asked Loki to find it out...possibly Loki was just going to do it anyway. Still didn't explain the boobs.

She told him as much.

"Soldiers are weak. Place a pretty woman in front of them and they fold to their demands as easily as butter melts in a pot. This place is filled with soldiers, I've seen many of my father and brother's comrades in arms tell many secrets they should not to get closer to the object of their desires. It is simply quicker," he told her. Even his voice had taken on a female pitch. She poked at his arm, feeling the soft skin. The body felt real and solid, not like the illusions he was prone to casting.

"Why blonde?" What a stupid question, Rose thought to herself.

"Do not men like blondes," he asked her confused. "That is what your silly little magazines imply. 'Gentlemen prefer blondes'."

Rose wanted to cackle at the puppy dog look in his eyes, which was the same man or woman, "Sure Loki." She looked pointedly as his... her breasts, "Those mine?"

He had the grace to look a bit embarrassed about it, "Changing one's shape is not as easy as you might assume. It is not as if I have had practice at becoming a woman before now. You should be flattered."

His tone was haughty and annoyed. "If you're going to flirt, try it a bit softer. Rich bitch might be the norm on Asgard but around these guys, they're just going to pass you over for something a bit less high maintenance."

She couldn't believe she was suggesting how to flirt with soldiers to her current best guy friend. Loki nodded at her as if it was the most serious lesson he'd ever been taught.

"I don't think all of these boys are going to be so loose with their lips. How are you going to get the info you want," she asked her. Loki smirked and pulled from inside of her buttoned up shirt (_don't look Rose, don't look, damn are those really modeled after mine_?) and pulled out a familiar bit of paper.

"I will simply make them believe that I am a very important woman in this...army," she spoke, her voice soft and lilting. Better. Loki had always been a quick learner.

Rose laughed, "He's going to be so pissed when he learns you nicked that off him."

The door opened. She quickly tried to school her face into a serious expression. Didn't want to poke the dog. Barnes was standing next to another soldier.

Who was gorgeous. Tall, blonde, and muscled like an Adonis. She stared with her mouth open gaping like a fish, her face feeling flushed.

"I sincerely hope that I will not be making anyone look like a mule," Loki muttered next to her.

"Miss Tyler, my name is Captain Rogers. I am sorry about this. We had to make sure that you were not the enemy. I hope you understand, times are tough at the moment. You are free to go. Your friends have already been released, I'm sorry it took me so long to get here and tell Bucky to let you out."

Rose blinked, "Out? They're out?" Loki hadn't mentioned that.

"Oh yes, that. Seems Thor challenging these boys to...what was it...yes, an arm wrestling contest convinced them we are not part of the hostile alien threat," Loki told her, smiling.

She could strangle him.

"Miss Tyler, do you want me to have Sgt. Barnes lead you back to your friends," Captain Rogers asked her. She blushed.

"Yeah, that would be great," she said, maybe a bit too cheerfully. She glared at Loki as he waved her goodbye, following Captain Rogers the opposite direction from where Barnes was leading her.

* * *

There was something strange about the man who'd introduced himself as Captain Rogers. He was tall and broadly built for a human, with blonde hair and blue eyes that reminded Loki of his brother. If his brother had ever considered shearing his hair as short as these Midgardian soldiers seemed to favor. (It seemed practical for battle but one thing the Aesir were not considered to be was practical).

No, there was something else that pulled at Loki's consciousness, something he was missing.

The soldiers stationed around various hallways seemed to treat Rogers with a mixture of respect and awe. He was new here, several times he had to stop and speak to another soldier for directions towards wherever he was going.

He seemed to perk up when a pretty Midgardian woman approached them, bringing them the final steps down hallways into an underground bunker filled with maps and paper. It was darkly lit, Midgardians were scattered around and it held in the air an aura of secrets.

Loki smirked.

There were stacks of books and parchments on the shelves near all the walls. He would start there first. He left Rogers and the woman to talk with an older, more authoritative male that approached them and wandered away, slowly becoming visible the further away he got from the Midgardians.

Invisibility would have served for subterfuge better but he was already spent in several directions magically. No need to tax himself unnecessarily.

Most of the parchments were battle placements, requirement lists, grocery supplies. Mundane activities that Loki had no use for. He moved around the stacks looking for anything of interest connected to HYDRA.

There was a certain horrifying fascination with the pictures of emaciated Midgardians liberated by soldiers from what could only be coined death camps. The Allfather would have condemned such atrocities. The Aesir code of honor strictly held that the innocent should be kept from war when possible, only warriors and those who fought back were acceptable enemies.

Midgardians could certainly be a brutal species. They killed their own in droves and batches.

Rose's compassion seemed out of place among these stories.

Finally, he came to something of interest all the way in the back of some of the shelves. It was a leather bound book, thick parchment papers crudely shoved inside of it and kept together with thick thread. Carved into the cover was what appeared to be a bastardized version of the Alltonuge, the runes of the Old Nordic of Midgard.

Curious. He quickly scanned the room to see if anyone had eyes on him. Rogers was bent over a map, the authoritative man listening to him talk with a scowl on his face.

He flipped open the book. The words contained inside seemed not to be written in English, but something else. He was not familiar with all the names that mortals used for their tongues, there were so very many of them, but it translated quickly enough for him to be able to decipher their words.

"_The possession of Dr. Abraham Erskine. Recordings of Project_ "_Rebirth_".

Were the Midgardians trying to gain a power of resurrection? It would end badly for them. Bringing the dead back to life was a dark, tricky business that even he would shy from. The power harnessed would forever change someone.

He flipped through. The first few pages contained nothing but useless drivel about some serum the good doctor was attempting to create, a way to make the perfect soldier. It seemed to be nothing but various failures, there was always some key element missing from the Doctor's calculations.

Nothing on HYDRA. Just some silly mortal trying to play God.

He had almost decided the journal useless when a passage caught his eye.

( _I have achieved it, the perfect balance. The serum is complete and ready to be tested. Schmidt is eager to participate in our project, a bit too eager. There is something untrustworthy about him_.

_Yet he is the only volunteer and I cannot test it on myself. I am no soldier. Science must be kept to the minds of we devoted to it_.

_A man came to me. He was dark and shrouded. He put my very nerve endings on edge but he has handed me the key to everything. Blood. His own or some other beings I do not know, nor where he comes from because surely a man with such blood does not hail from this earth. Its unique properties were key, the final component missing. Perfect genetic structure to create the perfect soldier_.

_We begin tomorrow_. )

So Erskine had been trying to manufacture the perfect soldier. One with the strength ten times that of the average Midgardian man. Whose blood had he used to complete his project?

Curious. Loki vanished the book from sight as he felt tiredness begin to creep in from all the energy he was spending.

One more question. Where was the TARDIS? The soldiers had left it there when they had marched them away but surely, they had recovered it for study? It was being kept somewhere around this base, he was sure of it.

Loki eyed the authoritative man. He quickly looked in a mirror that was sitting on one of the crowded tables near the stacks to make sure his disguise was still in place. Perfect.

His shoulder hit one of the soldiers that was walking with a file on his way over to Rogers and his companions. The young soldier blushed as 'she' smiled at him and looked away. Loki glanced at the file in his hands after the boy had wandered away, a list of names. Boring.

He walked over to hand the file to the older man. Quiet as a mouse, he continued to stand there without their notice. The trick was to blend in, act as if you belong. Midgardians asked no question.

Was Rogers one of Erskine's super soldiers? Was that the odd quality to him that Loki felt?

There was something almost Aesir about him.

"On to other matters," the old man said, his tone demanding and annoyed, "What is this I hear about some alien box? Four people walk out of a box? Am I hearing this correctly? I've got Nazi's and HYDRA enemies coming out my asshole, and now we've got what Barnes is claiming to be four people who came out a box that can maybe fit one person?"

Rogers blushed, "I wasn't there sir, I don't know much about it. Bucky said they just appeared. They don't seem hostile. I believe Stark has recovered the...box and has it somewhere in the base. I met one of them, she seemed friendly. A bit odd looking, I don't think she's from around here, but no enemy."

Loki looked around, who was Stark? Rogers had confirmed that the TARDIS was located at this base, now to find who was holding it. The Doctor had seemed very edgy to get away from this time period as quickly as possible during their brief time in the holding cell. Why?

The man snorted, "Because you'd know an enemy from a sheep Rogers. Girls can be spies for the Jerry's just as well as men, remember that. Where are they being held?"

Rogers had a childlike naivety not fit for a soldier who would need to make difficult calls. Fascinating. If he was one of Erskine's perfect soldiers, why choose him?

The woman spoke up, "They've been released from the holding cells sir. Stark ordered it. I believe he wants to speak to them about their...box."

Thor would be so devastated to learn that. He had believed it to be his show of warrior companionship that had gotten the Midgardians to release them. Not as stupid as Loki had believed them to be then, if it was under the orders of this Stark who wanted to study them. Still, not intelligent, for now their escape was made easier.

Stark would find studying them very difficult of course.

The old man grumbled, walking away with Rogers and the women. Loki eyed the book he held in his hands, then looked at Roger's retreating back.

Had Dr. Erskine been given the blood of an Aesir for his project? How many soldiers had he been able to create?

* * *

The Doctor felt on edge. What was the purpose of bringing them here? He ran his hands through his hair, eyeing the shade sitting next to him. Where was Rose?

Thor seemed happy enough, listening to two of the soldiers tell their war stories and having them teach him the intricacies of poker. If he'd had any money, he'd have been cleaned out an hour ago. He had the worst poker face of any of them.

HYDRA. If he remembered correctly, and he usually did, they were some of the most evil human organizations throughout the cosmos. Which meant that, if this was London in the 1940's, they were walking quite the tightrope of interfering with the timelines.

Was this some sort of clue? Was the TARDIS trying to tell him something?

The door opened and the Doctor grinned in relief when he saw Rose escorted in by one of the soldiers from the field where they had arrived at. She smiled at him. Most beautiful sight he'd seen all day. He saw her blink at the shade and open her mouth, but he shook his head. She kept quiet about it.

"Here you are Miss Tyler," Sgt. Barnes said chivalrously. Good man, Sgt. Barnes seemed to be...shame about all that mess later on. Least the Doctor thought it was him. Could be getting him mixed up really, he was important but not that important.

"Lady Rose, it is good to see you are safely returned to us," Thor said, getting up from where he was being sorely beaten at poker to pull out a chair for her.

"Miss, would you like me to bring you up a change of clothes?"

The Doctor grinned. Rose looked like a slattern to these men dressed in her jeans and tight pink t-shirt. Probably picturing something illicit going on in the TARDIS. Human minds could be so repetitive when they were denying what was right in front of them.

"That's alright, thanks. Tell Captain Rogers it was nice to meet him for me would you?"

Barnes nodded stiffly. The other soldier followed him out. They didn't lock the door, which meant they were guarding them.

"Captain Rogers," The Doctor said. "Steve Rogers?" Oh, they were definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still... "What was he like? Brilliant, Captain Rogers. One of the best here you know. Absolutely brilliant and fascinating. How did he feel? Oh, you're human right, probably couldn't feel it. You are alright?"

"I'm fine," she told him, smiling. "Where are we?"

The room had a table placed in the middle of it with two Queen sized beds right under the window. Not bad for an army base but certainly not a night out at the Hilton.

"I believe these are to be our quarters for the night Lady Rose," Thor told her, frowning. Use to royal living this one, even in campgrounds. Royal tents were always the grandest and always decked out in the finest things they could haul along with them on tents. All royalty had the same pomp sense of grandeur everywhere in the universe.

Barnes was talking to a girl. Back so soon?

"She denied the request for a change of clothes. I can't allow you in there."

"She must have changed her mind then," the woman's voice said, in a sweet voice. It was the same kind of tone Rose used when she was needling something out of him.

"I'm sorry miss, but I can't...Captain Rogers? He sent you to bring them? Be quick about it then."

Thor's eyes lit up at the sight of the gorgeous woman. The Doctor laughed as he shot up from his chair as if it was on fire to introduce himself. Rose giggled.

"My lady," he said, bending down to try to kiss her hand. She smoothly pulled it out of the way, eyeing him with a grimace.

"Have I offended you with my forward manner? I apologize," he told her, his face earnest and sincere. The shade moved out of the chair, quickly being changed, to leave the room. Thor frowned.

"Really brother, can you not recognize your own sibling," Loki said, smirking. They heard Barnes call out a farewell to the illusion of the leaving female agent. Loki tossed him back the psychic paper. The Doctor frowned, when had he pawned that?

Thor looked like he was about to be sick, "You might have warned me Loki."

Loki and Rose both laughed, "Miss that look upon your face? It was well worth it."

"Talk about incest on your own time," The Doctor said, interrupting. He couldn't waste five minutes of being in this timeline while Thor pouted at being denied the chance to woo a pretty woman because said pretty woman happened to be his little brother, "Anything?"

"No location, but it was picked up from the field by some person man named Stark. He is intent upon studying it for some purpose or other." Loki yawned, exhausted. Been spending a lot of energy on his little spy mission. Rose herself was eyeing one of the beds.

Blast. The clock out in the hall chimed. Ten at night. Another day, stuck in WW2.

He was really beginning to hate this time period. Nothing right ever went on in this time.

There was a distant sound of an explosion from somewhere within the base. The man known as Howard Stark was blown back from a small, tiny blue particle he'd been working with. Unseen, the Tesseract inside the TARDIS glowed brightly in response.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter** **Six**:

"Brother must you continue to parade yourself around in such a form? It is unsettling to look upon," Thor grumbled, glaring at his 'sister' who was primping her curled hair in the mirror. Rose giggled at the look on Thor's face. Like he was the protesting boyfriend waiting for his girlfriend to take him to the hated opera house for a night of culture.

"Do not let your gaze fall upon me then Thor," Loki shot back sarcastically, "If it is so unsettling to your delicate constitution."

Rose was getting used to it. The packaging might be a bit different but underneath Loki was still the same arrogant prat who was having a bit of fun watching Thor's face cringe every time he happened to chance looking at the female form his brother was currently in.

Rose thought he was having more trouble remembering that 'she' was Loki then him being truly offended at his brother parading around wearing a woman's body. She was hot after all. If Rose swung that way, she'd have been looking for a bit of fun with her.

Speaking of a bit of fun.

"I do not comprehend why you must stay in this form in our temporary chambers brother. Can you not change back?"

"Of course I could but why should I? I do what I want Thor..."

She tuned out the sound of the brother's arguing and moved to loop her arms around the Doctor's neck, who was studying some plans of the army base Loki had managed to nick from one of the soldiers who'd brought them breakfast earlier. Rose had to restrain herself from laughing when Thor had been three seconds away from having that soldier's head meet the wall when he been ogling Rose's chest.

Human men apparently had no respect for ladies in Thor's mind. Rose had just stopped herself from pointing out that she'd caught him peaking plenty of times.

Her alien was muttering to himself, "Where could they possibly be keeping it? So many rooms. Too much time, cannot search them all. Has to be a way to narrow it down, small rooms won't do, bunkers maybe? No, won't want it near the equipment..."

"Remember the last time we were in London in the 40's? I think you promised me dancing didn't you," she teased, putting her chin down to rest on his hair. It tickled her face.

"And kept that promise! We had quite a lovely time dancing around on the TARDIS. Even let Jack have a spin around," he reminisced.

"Which was lovely. But I remember something about some lovely music and real dancing being promised," she said. It had been so long since she'd danced with her Doctor, the last time they'd been in London and she'd not appreciated it the same way then as she would now. Just her and her Doctor, dancing to some romantic music. She lost herself in the fantasy for a few seconds, beginning to wonder about how different this dimension was from her own. Was there some other version of Jack Harkness running around in this London conning soldiers with stolen alien technology? She'd been a dog in the Zeppelin universe, who was to say that he'd be here? Probably just wishful thinking.

"That was real dancing," the Doctor insisted, pouting. Rose rolled her eyes. Men were so oblivious. Especially alien ones.

"Doctor, I believe the Lady Rose is requesting you take her to dance," Thor interjected. Huh,...well just her alien then if even Thor could see what she was leading on about.

Must be a Time Lord thing, oblivious to the obvious signals.

"Oh...I'll take you to some of the best balls as soon as we recover the TARDIS! Dress you up like a princess; we'll make fun of some royalty. Grand old time," the Doctor told her.

She sighed. Make fun of some royalty. Sometimes she wondered if she was wasting her time.

"We're already here. It's like a tradition, war time, dancing...," she said, trying to get him in the mood.

He shoved himself out of her arms, causing her to stumble back a few steps, "No! We simply don't have the time Rose!"

Thor and Loki stopped fighting to stare at the Doctor.

He'd yelled at her. Rose bit her lip, feeling like a bit of a fool. He opened his mouth, possibly to say sorry, possibly to explain. Didn't matter.

One of the soldiers that had been standing guard outside their room opened the door after a quick knock. Loki quickly threw a shade up of himself and vanished from the soldier's sight before his gaze could fall on the 'woman' not meant to be in the room. The Doctor crumbled up the nicked map in his hand.

"I've been requested to take you all to meet with Colonel Phillips," the soldier said, oblivious to the tension in the room.

* * *

Truly no one ever suspected a pretty girl, Loki mused as he propped his feet up on a desk to casually read one of the newspapers that had been laying there.

His shade had followed Rose and Thor behind some of the elected soldiers tasked with showing the 'guests' around the army base they were being housed in. Loki rather suspected that they were simply monitering them for any suspicious activity rather than let them wander off unobserved. The Doctor had followed the man who had named himself Colonel Phillips into an office.

'Captain America saves over 400 men'. The super soldier was all over the front pages of the paper. That seemed to be a big thing in this era, getting your name splashed across the paper in bold print. Even more impressive was the act itself. Not even Thor would have gone single handily to save over four hundred men from an unknown location with nothing but what appeared to be a shield. He would have taken an arsenal of weapons that would have done damage to their enemy and the Imbeciles Three.

Loki did not know whether to be impressed or horrified with the Midgardian man's stupidity.

Dr. Erskine's journal had left off shortly after what could be referred to as a truly atrocious disaster with his first test subject. His serum had been successful, but had unintended effects.

'_The monster hidden deep inside Schmidt's mind has come forth. The visage is reflected upon his very skin, it has turned a hellish_ _red_.'

It did not take long to figure from snooping around various files that he had persuaded some of the more amiable soldiers to point 'her' towards, that Schmidt was the ringleader of HYDRA. Not truly of alien origin then, simply another Midgardian with delusions of grandeur. It was amazing how many of them this time period seemed to spawn.

Thor had simply been wondering why no one had yet dealt with Hitler in single combat. Suggesting that if he would have his hammer he would deal with the Midgardian leech himself, (all while presence of some truly lovely Midgardian secretaries, but despite the boast to impress them, the sentiment itself was entirely truthful.)

People should kill their enemies in combat, not leave them to suffer months of sickness and indignities as if they were cattle. Loki had thought the Aesir could be creative with their punishments but his people had nothing on what the Midgardians managed to inflict upon each other. Such scattered creatures, dividing and fighting amongst themselves. Truly, no wonder the other eight realms considered them the most insignificant of Yggdrasil's creations.

Still, there was something not of this realm about HYDRA that these people were concerned with and finding this Stark man was the key to unlocking that question. As well as finding the TARDIS, which appeared to be the Doctor's key priority for the time being.

A voice sounded from behind him, "Excuse me, I'm looking for Mr. Stark."

'_When you find him send him my way_,' Loki thought, but telling the soldier a small white lie, "He's in with Colonel Phillips."

He glanced at the blonde soldier for a mere second. It quickly registered that the man behind him was not merely another Midgardian drone but one of the very people that Loki was so curious about.

Steve Rogers was standing there. Perfect.

He smiled, manipulating 'her' lips into a semblance of the same flirty smile he had seen Rose toss the Doctor's way many times before, "Of course, you're welcome to wait."

The flirty smile had been a technique Rose had also been attempting to show Rogers yesterday when the man had first crossed their paths. Loki wondered what it was about blonde and muscled that made women seem to lose their wits, even women as intelligent as Rose or as fierce as Sif.

Rogers moved to sit down on one of the tables across from where Loki had been lounging. Surprisingly sturdy make, not to crack under all that muscle. He crossed his arms across his chest in an action that reminded Loki of his brother.

Could that have been the blood that Erskine had used? His own brother's? There was only one-way to be sure but how would he get close enough to tell? If it was indeed his brother's blood, who had provided Erskine with the sample?

Loki closed the paper, putting it down on the desk, the title clearly shown towards Roger's line of vision. He searched in his eyes for any hint of arrogant pride at the reminder of the act yet saw none. Most warriors held no detail back with such acts of valor.

"I ahh...I read about what you did," she told him, drawing him in to conversation. Had Rose really been attracted to this man last night? Or was it simply something new and shiny to have a brief fantasy over?

She had been saddened by the Doctor's loud dismissal over her request to go dancing this morning. He was being rather abrupt this morning, unlike his usual cheerful mask he put on to fool everyone else that he was no more than an average, intelligent man. Something was nagging at him.

"Oh the, yeah...well that's, you know...just doing what needed to be done."

Not an arrogant man than, simply a righteous one. Loki had met several of his type on several realms.

"A bit more than that. You saved over four hundred men."

Rogers spoke something in response but Loki had blocked him out. Standing up from the wooden chair he walked over to the blushing and stuttering man. It was almost adorable. Surely, such an impressive specimen of a man was not unused to women approaching him?

Rose had given Loki the impression that Midgardian women had no scruples of being the one to woo rather than sit and wait to be wooed themselves.

He spoke some idle comment, focusing not on his words but on his own musings. A genetic sampling would tell him if some Aesir blood ran through the veins of this man as he suspected.

Roger's was moving about like a particularly nervous bunny. A trait that did seem to endear itself to Rose for the Doctor often flitted about the same way. Loki grabbed his tie, "The women of America owe you their thanks."

An act of simple gratitude. The Aesir did such acts on many occasions. Nothing more and Loki hoped Roger's understood that as he pulled him back towards the stacks, kissing him deeply. Rogers' kiss was inexpert but Loki was not looking for skill from the act. He subtly tasted the man's skin. It was there. Subtle but there.

Rogers pulled away at the sound of a woman snapping his rank. The glare she turned on them could have melted Mjlnoir, such was the heat of its gaze.

No matter though. Loki had attained what he wanted. Erskine had indeed used Aesir blood to create his perfect soldiers, though whose blood it was and whom had given it to the scientist was still yet to be discovered, they had been cut off before he could explore further.

Rogers followed the woman. He did not mean to listen in but the sound of their fight was loud and in full hearing range of everyone who would show any interest.

"Tough shit Rogers," one of the men told the shocked blonde after the woman had stormed away, "A few of us are going out for drinks later at a dance club. You should come along. Plenty of other women there."

Rose's sad face drifted into his mind. Perhaps a bit of fun with the soldier might cheer her up? Another woman did not seem to be an obstacle at the moment.

* * *

"I believe that Stark shall be at this dance club as the mortal soldier called it. He implied that the 'boys' were going out for drinks. And women," Loki told the Doctor, shoving an outfit at Thor that didn't resemble something out of a Middle Ages Renaissance fair.

"What is this..." Thor began to ask and Rose laughed as Loki vanished Thor's armor to glamour the outfit over what Thor was wearing. The blonde scowled at his current sister-brother.

"The faster we find Stark, the faster we shall find the TARDIS, the happier everyone shall be," Loki said to her pouting Doctor.

Rose smiled when he tossed her a dress. It cut off at the knees and was a deep navy colored blue with a red sash that wrapped around the waist.

"Must we go to a ball Loki? Was it not my turn to pick the venture? A Midgardian ball does not seem like what I requested," Thor said, plucking forlornly at the tie around his neck.

"You may stay here if you wish to. I see no need why we must announce our presence to the Midgard warriors while you tell drunken stories to their women about the deeds of the Mighty Thor," Loki snarked. Thor's face lit up at the prospect of boasting, booze, and bimbo's.

"Don't call yourself the Mighty Thor," The Doctor scolded, "Last thing we need is these people locking you up for study. Or have to bust you out of a mental hospital. Again! Three times in the last month! Never been around so many nutters in my life."

"You can pick the next one," Rose laughed, going behind the dresser to slip on the dress. Not that anyone would really be looking she mused, peaking at the Doctor from around the dresser. It fit a bit loose but she couldn't leave it up to Loki to get the exact size right. She tied the red sash tighter around her waist to make it more fitted.

"So...how do I look," she asked, spinning around so that the skirt fanned out around her.

Thor complimented her by telling her she looked like a flower in the peak of bloom. Rose blushed. Loki was nodding his head and smirking. 'She' was dressed in a similar outfit, blonde hair falling in loose curls around her face.

The Doctor smiled, "Brilliant. Utterly brilliant. Real 1940's...well, a bit tight, but you look...how are you even planning to get us past those soldier boys still stationed outside this room? Locked up tighter then a condemned man here."

"They have had a long day. I hope they don't get in trouble for sleeping on the job," Loki told them, opening the door and stepping over one of the unconscious guards. Hot chocolate half drunk was sitting in mugs on the floor next to them.

"Must you stay like that? It is ergi," Thor grumbled, following his brother. Loki told him in no uncertain terms where to stick it. Whatever ergi meant, Rose figured it wasn't the word for, 'you look really hot and if you weren't my sister-brother I'd be totally shagging you'.

The Doctor picked a red rose out of the flower vase that had been sitting on the table since they'd gotten here. He reached over to pull some of the blond strands away from her face, the skin of his fingertips causing her own to tingle, and placed the flower behind her ear. He smiled.

"Got your way then," he said, taking her hand to follow the brothers.

"You know this means you have to dance with me," she teased.

_Almost my way_, Rose thought to herself. She squeezed his hand in hers. _Almost_.

The club was playing slow, soothing jazz music when they arrived, the inside looked like something out of an old black and white film. Soldiers were charming girls with tales of war and battles, their last nights before they were shipped out. Only they weren't just stories, these were real men. Real men who were fighting a war and about ready to be shipped out and face horrible things. Some of the men in this room would be gone in a month, many more in the years ahead would also fall.

For now though everyone inside the bar forgot that a war was going on. Women laughed, men drank and sang off tune, couples danced. It was perfect.

This was what made traveling with the Doctor special. Moments that should be gone and erased from history brought to life.

She sighed from where she was leaning up against the bar next to Loki, drinking a beer. She needed to get a leash for that man. The Doctor had wandered off within five minutes of their arriving here. Several soldiers approached her but she waved them away. Thor had surrounded himself with women a few bar stools away, one-half of his attention on the fawning girls, the other on any men that looked at his sister-brother. He kept shooting Loki glares, each one making Loki smirk wider.

"Want to really scandalize your brother, and half the room along with it, me and you should dance," Rose told him. She could just picture that scene. Half these boys would be looking at them like the they were the devil's Christmas present.

"I'd be a poor partner for this type of dancing," the Aesir replied. Currently, blue eyes were scanning around the room, looking for something.

'Her' face fixed itself into a contrite looking expression when they landed on the gorgeous blonde soldier that had sprung her from her jail cell the day before. Captain Rogers. Also known as Captain America and yeah, so Rose had a bit of a crush. He was like some sort of fairy tale prince straight out of her childhood Disney fantasies.

"I have, however, found you the right one," Loki told her, looping his arm around hers to steer her over towards the captain and his friend. She hissed at him but he ignored her, continuing to march them over to the increasingly flustered looking blonde who seemed to have spotted them walking his way.

He eyed Loki with what looked like trepidation. Really? What could he have possibly done now?

"Captain Rogers, fancy seeing you here," Loki told the blushing man.

"Miss..." Rogers answered, arms crossed around his chest. Rose wasn't sure if he was being defensive or nervous.

"Skywalker," Loki lied, "Lucy Skywalker. I must apologize for my forwardness this afternoon. It shouldn't have happened." What had he done?

"This is my friend, Rose. I believe you two might have met?"

Rose blushed, waving. He smiled at her a bit oddly. Did she have something in her teeth? Was her face making her look like a tomato?

"I remember. I didn't know that you were given leave to go off the base miss. Do you live in London," he wondered. His friend was eyeing her dress with a lecherous looking grin.

"I don't," she told him. Not this London at least. "Just passing through. I know her from way back." She gestured towards 'Lucy', who was now the one under the other soldier's male gaze. The man quickly looked away at the frown she tossed him.

"Oh. Your friends. Are they here as well," he asked. Gorgeous or not, she was still sort of an enemy to these people. Why had Loki even brought them over here? She couldn't see Thor or the Doctor through the crowd. Maybe the Aesir prince had wandered off for a bit of slap and tickle with one of the girls who'd been hanging on his arm like velcro.

"No just Lo...Lucy," she said, pointing to where he should have been standing. She just saw the back of blonde curls and a green dress disappearing behind some of the soldiers. A pale hand shot out to steal a glass of champagne from a tall brunette who had his back to Rose's view. Loki turned to face her, gesturing with the glass towards Captain Rogers and smirking.

"I guess she found someone else to be a bit forward with," he said, voice sounding slightly choked. His hand went back to his hair to run through it nervously. Rose was so use to men like Jack and Thor who held so much confidence in the face of women, it had been a while since she'd seen a man so out of his depth when faced with a bird.

"Yeah ahh..." Rose laughed, she was a bit rusty, she hadn't truly flirted with any one and no one near as gorgeous as this since the last time she'd seen Mickey. No one but the Doctor that is and she might as well be flirting with a Shepard's pie for all that he noticed.

"She does that." A slow piano ballad started to play in the background and Rose watched couples moving away from the bar to join those already dancing. Stupid alien blokes, running off after he'd promised her a dance. One body change and suddenly he was all left feet and stupid bloke.

"Want to dance," she asked before she could stop herself. Roger's face looked like it had been hit with a shoe. Men probably always asked the women around here but so what. Didn't she deserve a dance with a gorgeous bloke once in a while?

"Ummm...I don't..." Rose grabbed one of his hands, leading him on to the dance floor. He was strong, if he really didn't want to, no way she'd have been able to move him. Thor felt like a rock when you had to try getting him out of bed in the mornings.

"One dance. I promise I'm not going to burn you, I'm not the Wicked Witch of the West," Rose said, taking his hand to place around her waist. His fingers flexed unsure.

"You and Lucy," Rogers stuttered, aww it was adorable watching his face go pink, "Where are you from? France?" His friend was giving her a thumbs up from over where they had been standing.

"No, not quite. Around here. I guess you could say we're a bit...out of time really," Rose said, stroking the skin on the back of his neck. It had been so long since she'd be so close to a man like this. A girl had needs. Was it so much to ask for just one dance?

Here she was, dancing with a gorgeous blonde in a smoky bar in the 1940's and she was complaining about the Doctor in her head. She really needed to start sorting out her priorities.

"Are you alright? You seem...sad. I mean...uhh...I don't know but you just...look sad," he said. His face was soft and concerned. He really was a sweetheart. The old Rose would have been all over him like ketchup on top of fries. Now all she could think about was The Doctor.

"I'm sorry, I'm fine." She could feel tears starting to well up in her eyes, "I'm just...she was trying to cheer me up and I'm probably ruining your night now too and you don't even know me and I'm crying on you."

"It's...it's alright, I mean...I came here to sort of...get away. There was this...mix-up earlier and ...do you want to talk about it?"

"Just...relationships. I was supposed to be...dancing. I mean not that you're not a great partner, you are. You're amazing and gorgeous but...he promised and now he's...wandered off to who knows where doing who knows what and it's just...sometimes I wonder if he even notices me," she said, sighing. Sometimes she thought a mannequin from the store she and the Doctor had met in could have served him just as well. Everything had gotten so complicated lately.

"No offense miss, he's a fool then," Rogers told her bluntly. Half a laugh made its way out of her throat.

"Don't tell him that. Convinced he's the smartest bloke in the world that one."

"If a woman I loved wanted to dance, there's nowhere else I'd rather be in the world," Rogers confessed. She stepped away as the last notes of the piano faded out. Rogers pulled a handkerchief out of one of his pockets and handed it to her to wipe her cheeks free of the tear marks.

"Thanks."

* * *

Loki smirked as he watched Rose and the lost looking Midgardian soldier. He grabbed a champagne glass from who he assumed was a servant's hand. He gestured towards the blonde soldier to Rose, then downed the drink. It went down smooth, biting at his taste buds, a more interesting flavor then the honeyed ales of the Aesir.

"I might buy you another if you tell me your name beautiful," the man in front of him was speaking. Loki blinked.

"That was mine," the man continued to talk. There was something odd about him. Out of place. The energy surrounding him looked different.

"Quiet one then. My name is Captain Jack Harkness." No it wasn't. A skilled liar could always spot another. The man smiled, shamefully under the impression that such a smile would sway Loki to talk to him.

"No." Loki shoved the empty glass back into the man's hand, walking away from him. Where ever he came from, that was a mystery to be left unsolved. Erskine's diary had to be put back in its rightful place in the army base and he had to find Stark. Find Stark, find the TARDIS.

Loki had left Dr. Erskine's book in the room they'd stayed the night in, he wondered if he should bring the book back down to the bunker? He could simply leave it there, what would it affect him if the journal was found to be in the wrong place? No one could ever suspect him. Or take it with him.

The formula was dangerous. It could never be replicated without the blood of another Aesir but that might not be impossible for the Midgardians to get a hold of again. The Red Skull had committed atrocities. Rogers might have been a success but there would be other's like Schmidt. Perhaps it best that the Midgardians not have the means to create more monsters to unleash on an already barbaric realm.

He spotted the Doctor staring at the dancing Rose and Captain Rogers. His face reflected that of the woman Roger's had run after this afternoon. Good. Perhaps it was just the incentive the Doctor needed to realize that Rose was right there.

He made small talk with several soldiers, pasting on a flirty smile and a sweet, demure sounding voice. None could tell him where Stark was.

The bra straps were starting to irritate his skin. Perhaps it was time to shed this disguise. Thor was nowhere in sight to annoy with the act of flirting with the soldiers and the heeled shoes that Midgardian women wore on their feet with irritating him.

What Rose referred to as the loo was empty. Perfect place to change back. He quickly closed the door behind him and started to undo the buttons on the blouse. Illusions would have been more comfortable but he'd not wanted to chance that one of the Midgardians might feel that the clothes upon his disguised body was not the same material as that of which he was actually wearing.

An illusion would have to do for now. He'd not thought to bring a set of male clothes for himself to this bar. An oversight that he cursed himself for.

He opened the door and cursed aloud.

"Now that's not something you see every day. Gorgeous woman goes in, a gorgeous man comes out. So, what are you," the irritating out of place brunette ape from earlier. Loki scowled.

"You are drunk. I have no idea what you are on about you miscreant," he hissed, shoving past the man. The more time he spent around Rose, the more it seemed he was losing his elegant composure that he had been so regarded for in the halls of the Aesir.

"No I don't think I am. I think you're not from around here. You happen to be in luck though, cause neither am I," Jack, or so he called himself, called out to him. He could hear footsteps following behind him. Must he get rid of this lout the hard way?

"I have no interest in where you are from." He glared darkly as the man grabbed his wrist to stop him. _How dare_ _he_, Loki thought fuming.

"But you do have an interest in Howard Stark right? You've been asking everyone in the room."

There was a scientific device on the man's wrist that emitted energy and signals somewhat similar to the TARDIS. A time traveler?

'_This man had suddenly become three times more interesting than he is worth'_, Loki mused, studying the wrist band.

"The TARDIS is located directly under the room we are being kept in," Loki whispered to the Doctor after he'd successfully attained the information from the time traveler. The brunette would wake up missing an important device and with a bit of a headache but Loki had been as nice as called for when faced with the situation.

"Really? So close? How'd you find that out," The Doctor said. He was pouting. Rose was nowhere in sight. Loki resisted the urge to roll his eyes like a teenage Midgardian female.

"These soldiers have big mouths," he lied. As well as interesting technology; the man had possessed what appeared to be a type of hand held TARDIS.

"Well then, should go find your brother then. And Rose. She uhh...left. Not with the Captain though, he stayed here. For a while. Gone now," The Doctor said.

Loki would go search for them while The Doctor retrieved the TARDIS. He hoped he would not find his brother illicitly involved. His nightmares were horrible enough lately. At night, he couldn't shake the image of what appeared to be a planet burning and a man laughing. A man desperate, lost, and angry.

"Loki..." The Doctor called as he started to walk away to find Rose, "Leave the vortex manipulator."

Damn. And after having endured forty five minutes of the boar's company and various remarks about 'Ice Queens' waiting for the man to let down his guard enough so that Loki could slip the time device from his wrist without notice. If he could not mix his magic with science to create his own way to travel through time, why not take from those who already had it?

He placed it on the bar in front of the Doctor and went to look for Rose.

All the stars were out tonight, shining in the sky. Loki knew if he looked up, he would not see Asgard. His home was light years away from the Midgardian skies.

Rose was on a bench outside the bar, lost in thought. He sat down next to her quietly.

"I'm sorry," he said. Tear tracks were dried upon her cheeks. If Rogers had been the one to upset her so, the super soldier would be lucky to remain on this earth.

"Not your fault," she whispered hoarsely, "You were trying to help."

His attempts at helping rarely went well.

"Love is stupid," she complained, her breath coming out in pants. It was a cold night. He could not feel it like her. She was shivering and goose bumps were rising on the skin of her arms.

"A curse," he agreed. He pulled her close. Perhaps his body warmth could act as a coat. She sighed, closing her eyes.

"I guess we're both a sorry pair of fools. Loving people who don't or can't love us back."

The lie. The one she believed about his 'feelings' for Sif. He had never corrected her. Suddenly the lie was like a beast gnawing at a bone licked clean.

Still, he did not correct her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter** **Seven**:

Bloody Aesir. They were bad luck. Not even a rabbit's foot was going to ward away the simply rotten luck having two of them around had brought the Doctor over the past month. He'd never had such troublesome companions!

Though The Doctor had only been too happy to get away from that blasted bunker. Nothing good ever came around in WW2. All WW2 eras were going to be banned from his TARDIS's destinations as quickly as the four of them could get away.

As per the agreement he'd let Thor choose this time. Never again. He was done letting the companions choose the destination. It wasn't truly the prince's fault that the Doctor had been off shooting the village by about fifty years. And no the Aesir couldn't have predicted that there would be a snow storm. That somehow they'd be separated in two opposite directions and that the Doctor hadn't put a homing device into Rose's flesh yet so that he'd know where exactly she was at all times. Should look into that.

Three days. Rose and Loki had been missing for three days. He'd never lost her before. Thor had joined with search parties that their hosts had been generous enough to supply them with but each day he came back more and more distressed looking and sans Rose and his brother.

She needed to be brought back, safe and sound. Loki better be taking good care of her.

His mind racing, The Doctor began to think back to the last time he'd seen them before they'd gotten seperated. He had almost been prepared in the dance club to tell Loki the truth about his heritage, to defy everything, all laws of the universe itself. The Jotun was becoming a friend and why should he lose more friends?

This past month had been like days long gone past, moments that reminded him of The Master as the young child he'd once been. Days spent bent over studies and running through pastures of red grass on Gallifrey, two friends not yet separated through guilt and anger. Watching the two brother, not yet broken apart with anger and regrets, with the weight of hundreds of years of betrayals and lost lives? It brought his mind spinning back to that day everything had been ripped apart.

The day he'd let his best friend become death's servant to save himself. For a brief moment he'd caved, he could not condemn another to a life of destruction.

Until he'd seen Loki holding Jack's vortex manipulator. It had brought reality flooding back, the feeling of guilt at condemning a man who was becoming a friend buried. For how could he condemn an entire universe, to save one man? To assuage his guilt over someone dead and gone with the rest of his people?

No, that was dangerously close to playing God.

Speaking of Gods, the tiny village that Thor and The Doctor had been lucky enough to stumble to had expanded somewhat since the last time the Doctor had been here. The people were much, well not exactly happy, life in the far reaches of the icy northern lands of Norway was hard, but much happier not to be besieged by angry, land hungry Jotuns who towered over them.

Thor was happy to be in a place in which he could boast of his true worth. The people flocked to him in droves, the son of Odin, the man whom they worshipped as a god. At night after a long days hunt for Loki and Rose, Thor would gather around the fire to tell young, awed looking warriors and haggard old men tales of Asgard. He'd even mentioned the story of the dwarves. The Doctor had grimaced at that but it had seemed to enrapture the men.

Thor spoke in great length about his life in Asgard, the lives of his brother and his family. He told the villagers about the deeds of the Gods, retold them the Aesir legends about beings such as Valkeyries and Valhalla. The Doctor watched light appear in in the villagers eyes as they listened to his tales, spoken like a Shapkespearean play being read aloud to an enraptured class.

This was how human myths got started. The Aesir, the Olympians, other so-called divine beings. Long lived aliens that came down (sometimes out of boredom, sometimes helping, sometimes just for sport) to an underdeveloped planet that was searching for guidance and telling the inhabitants their lives; human minds just beginning to grow, searching for the depths of answers to the mysteries of life. Generations passing these tales down, the truth becoming less as the years past, till only the bare bones of what had really occured in the lives of these 'Gods' remained.

Yet there is truth in the lies that humans told themselves to comfort their existence.

Even Time Lords were not immune to the binding web of belief.

He was lost without her. Somehow, sometime, she had become his anchor. He could feel himself drifting, dark thoughts emerging; he wanted to search himself for her. He needed her. He thought he would tear the world apart if it just brought her back to his arms.

Was she ready to leave him? They all left, one day. He had his own part in it, he pushed and he pulled until they could take no more. The danger became too much. The Doctor couldn't quite erase the devestated look on her face after he'd come upon Rose and Loki sitting on that bench outside the dance club as they'd been getting ready to leave. He also couldn't shake the image of her dancing with Steve Rogers just hours before, how wrong it had been to see her in the arms of another man, wondering just what would be the final push that made him lose her.

"You should not despair for your friends Doctor. Loge and the company shall find them. Your young intended is in the protection of a god, there is none safer," said the short, red headed woman who was tending to a pot of boiling fish stew, interrupting his thoughts. Her hair reminded the Doctor of fire. It was beautiful. Next time, shoot for the red hair. Always wanted to be a ginger.

Her name was Glut. Wife of Loge. They had two little daughters of their own. They'd kindly provided their home to him and Thor to stay with them.

They believed they were housing divine beings.

The Doctor could never tell them that there were no divine beings, only creatures, with flaws and darkness and compassion and arrogance and hope, just like them.

Beings that manipulate and prey on the weak. Take advantage of their naivety or their kindness. Their guilt.

Glut handed him a bowl of soup, smiling. She was a kind woman. A lot like Rose. Heart bigger than the whole of her body.

The Doctor remembered her grandmother Bestla well. They'd met during the Jotun war after he'd brought a wounded Odin towards her doorstep. For seven long days and nights Bestla had taken care of Odin, nursing him back to health. Many times she would coax him out of his slumber back to consciousness so that she could hear tales of the Aesir. In his gratitude Odin had told her many memories of his life and many secrets of his people.

Which she had later given to her people. Downtrodden, the villages destroyed, food all but gone, but with stories and practices from their saviors, she had helped pick her people back up. It had given them hope. The resilience of humanity continued to amaze him.

The Doctor looked up from his soup as Loge and Thor stepped through the opening of the hut. Frost clung to their thick animal furs and in their hair. The Norseman was strongly built, with a weathered face, hair gone to gray and a stern manner. Harsh, like wind.

He'd offered Thor the use of his own horse to ride out with to find his brother. His one treasure in this barren land.

"Nothing," The Doctor said.

"Nothing," Thor confirmed. "Where ever Loki and Lady Rose may have ended up, they have not yet made their way here. My brother, for all his ergi ways, knows how to survive in the wild Doctor. All our people are taught this skill from infancy. I have no fear that we will find them naught but alive."

The Doctor wished Loki's magic could send a bat signal to their exact location. Cause some smoke to rise up in the air, anything. Searching with a blindfold on was doing him nothing. He could call her, but that guaranteed nothing. Why had Loki not come to them? Was it simply because he could not find them?

Did he want to?

The next morning the Doctor followed Thor and Loge outside the hut to watch Thor saddle Loge's horse, little Einmyria following them to watch Thor. The Norseman was old now, with a lame leg and he could not easily ride out everyday with the young prince. He had elected to stay back on this day.

"You have a fine touch with horses my Lord," Loge remarked, admiring of the gentle, skilled way Thor placed the saddle upon the beast.

"She is a fine steed. Almost as worthy a steed as Sleiphnir, my father's steed. He possesses eight legs, the mightiest of horses," Thor boasted, "None but my father and Loki will he allow to touch him. Loki dotes on Slephnir. I have learned many of my calming tricks from him."

"An eight legged horse! A wonder," Loge said.

"Father! Father!" Eisa, the other of Loge and Glut's daughters, was running over to them. She'd wondered off early in the morning to fish from the stream by woods for the late day meal.

Behind her was a tall, red headed man. And someone very pink and yellow. The Doctor felt the steel vice that had been entrapping his heart for the past few days begin to unlock. He ran towards the pair.

"Look at you! Beautiful. Most beautiful sight I've ever seen," he cried.

"Well he is pretty," Rose was saying. The sound of her voice. Music. He hugged her, burying his face in her hair. He could see Thor embracing Loki from the gaps in the strands. Why was he ginger? Never matter, they were safe. She was alive.

The giant wolf growled and plopped itself down on the ground.

* * *

Rose had never felt so bloody cold in her life.

England could get cold and clammy with its rainy weather but up north here, it was pure ice. Snow mountains that were bigger than her as far as she could see, the wind bit at her cheeks and turned the skin red and irritated.

Loki had conjured her up some furs to wrap herself in. It kept out as much of the cold from seeping into her skin and turning her flesh black with frost rot. So far, he seemed unaffected from the icy bite of the wind.

The first night he'd conjured a fire almost taller than her to keep her warm. He'd helped to lull her off into a troubled sleep by telling her stories of his childhood.

Her dreams had been filled with images of blood and werewolves, like something straight out of a Hollywood horror flick. Loki had not slept at all, but had been loath to leave her on her own in case the fire served as a signal beacon to less than friendly locals.

She'd never been so far away from the Doctor. Or so hungry. Magic could do many things but create food where there was none was not one of its perks. They hadn't chanced upon anything that could be caught and killed, her mind shying away from the thought of hunting food itself, and anything green was buried and dead beneath the snow.

How could anyone survive out here?

The next morning they set out, walking what seemed like miles. She had asked why Loki could not simply teleport them back to the Doctor. He would not risk taking her with him. She could end up missing parts if the spell went wrong, bringing bodies along went wrong two times out of three. And he could not find that which he did not know. Finding her in the army base had been easy, he'd simply waited for one of the soldiers to tell where they were keeping her, but the Doctor and Thor could be anywhere.

They could be dead. Rose shied away from the nagging worry. The Doctor and Thor were not simply men, they would survive this. And so would she.

She was not on her own. She had him.

"A poor substitute for my brother Rose. I am no hunter, tests of physical skills has never been my strong suit," Loki muttered.

"Even if you're the lowest in your P.E. class, you're still miles ahead of me. You'll get us through this. I have faith in you," she gasped out. She could see her breath in the winter chill. The furs felt like ten pounds of weight on top of her and she moved slowly. Loki had to slow his own pace to make sure she didn't fall behind.

He held out his hand so they would not be separated.

Sometime later that afternoon, when the sun was at the highest peak in the sky and nearly blinding her with its glare they spotted what looked like two men. Rose's heart leapt. The Doctor and Thor.

The two men were old, significantly older, the closer they got. The fact that Rose could not understand them meant that she and Loki were far, far away from the TARDIS. Whichever way they were moving, it wasn't towards the boys.

"How come you could talk to them and I couldn't," she asked him later that night. He'd turned his hair the color of the fire after the men had watched them walk off, remarking that it may help him to blend in better. The Midgardians of this region were fair to look upon according to the Aesir warrior's tales. They'd managed to find a cave that could provide them shelter. The fire lit up shadows across the cave walls and though the floor was hard stone, Rose was grateful to be away from the snow. If she never saw the blasted stuff, again it would be too soon.

She'd be having the Doctor take them to a beach next. Hot weather, sand, oceans. No frost and bloody snow.

"The Alltongue. It is like the Doctor's TARDIS. It allows me to understand and be understood by many creatures through the realm. I speak English to your ears, but I have never actually spoken your tongue. I am conversing in my own," he told her.

"So... it's like some low level psychic brain wave thingy?" She'd never quite been able to grasp all the intricacies of the TARDIS; Loki's magic was a thing that would forever boggle her mind. He could do things straight out of a Harry Potter novel and much more badass.

"Of a type," he confirmed. Something had changed between them in the past few days. He was more open then he'd ever been. Loki had always been a master at talking without saying anything of value in the entire time she'd met him. The surface was like the calm stillness of a river, underneath was the mystery invisible to all but those allowed in.

She yawned. All this walking was taking a lot out of her. He managed to kill the fire some so that the light wasn't so bright behind her eyelids but would still serve to warm them.

_(__ There was something inside her. It was consuming her. She could see_ _everything_.

_All that was. All that could be. All that should_ _be_.

_The universe was vast and they were tiny. They were not Gods. False. Liars. Tricksters_.

_She hated them. She had the power to burn the life from them_.

_It was too much, there was not enough space. This vessel was flawed. Insignificant_.

_"You are tiny. I see the whole of your existence. Every atom and I divide them_."

_The walls between the universes were so very thin. There was so much space. So much potential. She could feel power calling to her, she began to reach out to touch it_.

_Light flashed behind her eyes_. )

Rose gasped, abruptly sitting upright. Loki was cradling her to his chest, stroking her hair. She was shaking.

"Rose, what is it? What did you see," he asked as she gasped into his chest, fighting to regain her breath. The images were fading.

"I...I don't...I don't know," she said. Why was she so scared? What was she forgetting?

His eyes were bright with concern. She drew herself tighter around him seeking warmth.

"Don't...don't leave. Just...stay. I don't want to be alone," she begged.

"I shall stay as long as you shall have me here," he promised solemnly. She sighed, shaken. She wanted The Doctor here. She wanted both of them out of this cold bloody cave.

He'd been in her dream. The last thing she could see was him. As he had been, when they'd first met.

"Tell me, tell me how you fell in love," she asked Loki. She needed to hear something, anything to chase the thought away. The nagging feeling that there was something she was missing. Something she should know. He sighed.

"You do not want to hear that tale Rose," he said. His eyes were closed and his face was shattered. What had Sif done to him? How empty was it to love someone who did not love you? Mickey had loved her and she'd taken him for granted.

And she loved the Doctor. Her doctor. Even if he never felt the same, she could not leave him. She wanted forever.

"I don't want to hear it? Or you don't want to tell it?"

* * *

It would not be so hard to lie. Lying was as easy as breathing. The truth...was hard. It exposed you and made you vulnerable, weak. The truth left you bare. The truth could cause more pain then any lie.

She would see him for the petty, spiteful creature he was. She, with all her compassion and kindness, her cheerfulness. How could she comprehend the act of jealousy had been committed if not out of the elusive veil of love?

Would she still care for him if she knew the truth? Or did she care for a mask?

Loki has exposed parts of himself to her that he had kept locked inside the boxes of his mind for centuries, even to himself. Parts he would never reveal to Thor, despite that he loved his brother more than anything in these realms. Thor was arrogant and casually cruel. Thor mocked his passions and belittled his talents like all the other warriors.

Could he face losing her? His only friend.

"I do not want to tell it. For there is no tale of how I feel in love, Rose," he sighed. The frown on her face cut through him like a knife. There was no turning back. He had made a decision here. The truth felt bitter on his tongue, like acid.

_Ergi. Coward. You are nothing. A shadow cast from his light. You will never be the sun_.

"I was jealous. There was no pure emotion to the act. I cut Sif's hair out of spite and jealousy. In Asgard, I am not loved. I am different. Thor, my brother, out of all, he is the only one who tries. Sif is everything my brother hopes that I would be. His companion, she loves what he loves. She is perfect for him."

"I cut her hair so that she would be less in his eyes."

He waited for the condemnation. The Aesir had laughed gleefully, watching with pleasured eyes as Thor had held him down for the dwarf's justice. Sif's gaze had been dark and filled with hatred. Her new hair covered by a veil, for even then, under the strict orders of his father, his jealousy did not relent.

The hair was as dark as his own. He would no longer be the only shadow among light.

Her hand felt like ice on the flesh of his cheek. He opened his eyes to meet her own. Her gaze held no pity, no scorn. There was...understanding? How? Why?

"I once almost destroyed the world because I didn't want to lose my dad. The Doctor took me back, to see him before he died. Told me not to interfere. Bad things happen. I knew that, but I didn't listen. I wanted my dad and I didn't care who suffered for it," she said, her voice soft, remembering.

"I'm no stranger to doing stupid things when you're afraid of losing someone."

Had he been afraid? Yes. He could admit that. Thor had been slipping away from him. His father did not see him. His mother had become cold and distant as time passed.

Asgard was his home but he was the outsider. The second son, not the heir. The one who used words in place of action. The sorcerer, the worker of women's skills. He did not care to seek out wars and glory. He did not care to hunt. Why use force when you could manipulate? Why beat an enemy to your side when you could use them for your advantage?

He chuckled, "Rose Tyler. You are truly a marvel. There shall never be another like you."

She smiled at him, "And don't you forget that."

* * *

This country had great big bloody wolfs! And not like the werewolf she had seen in the Victorian age, no this one was a regular old wolf. Standing almost as tall as her shoulders and pure white. She froze, standing still as she could when its red-eyed gaze fall on her.

It growled. Bloody hell she probably looked like dinner.

She felt her heart hammering in her chest as she started to inch back towards the cave she'd left Loki sleeping in. She'd just stepped out to pee, really, was it too much to ask not to be faced with a potential mauling this early in the morning?

Just a little closer. A few more steps. If she could just wake him up without making a sound.

Something snapped under her foot. The sound echoed across the landscape like a bullet leaving a gun.

Shit.

She felt a scream tear out of her throat as the wolf started to charge towards her. This was it, she was going to die. "LOKI!"

She waited for something. Anything. Waited for his arms to wrap around her waist and pull her to safety inside the cave. Waited to feel sharp teeth sinking into her flesh. She closed her eyes. She couldn't watch.

The wolf growled. It sounded close but she couldn't feel his hot breath on her skin. She cautiously began to open her eyes. Loki was blocking the wolf from her view, half dressed and standing still and protective. She moved her head to peer around him.

The giant creature had stopped charging. He was studying Loki, as if he knew him. Loki wasn't food to him, he was something...familiar. Astonished, she watched as the giant beast began to thump his tail back and forth across the snow. Like a puppy.

Loki appeared as perplexed as she was.

"What the..." Rose began to say. He moved back his hand to grip her own, silently making sure she was ok.

The wolf grinned at him. Literally. Grinned. Its mouth opened in a mockery of a human smile, showing every single one of those large, sharp teeth and grinned.

That was not normal.

"It is a Jotunheim direwolf. It must have been bred here after the great war," Loki said, his voice coming out in a whisper.

"Well, it seems to like you," she weakly joked. Her legs felt like jelly. She needed to sit down. Preferably, somewhere with a nice, hot cup of tea.

"Unusual. Such creatures are vicious. They harm all in their paths, barring their bonded. They can share the thoughts of their bonded. So I have read," he told her.

"Well maybe he thinks you're his mommy," Rose said. The wolf wasn't as scary looking at Loki with those pleading puppy eyes. Actually, it was kind of adorable.

"His mother?" The wolf rubbed his head up against Loki's stomach, snuffling. He glared down at it.

"Well your hair is a bit girly," Rose told him. Seriously, hadn't he and his brother ever heard of a trim? Her panic had faded in the face of the wolf's calmness.

Her hand felt slimy and wet when the wolf reached out to lick it. She giggled. He sniffed at her, memorizing her scent.

Rose's eyes widened. Scent. But she had nothing on her of the Doctor's. Loki had reluctantly bent down to pet the top of the wolf's head, glaring at it for daring to bond to him.

"Loki! This is it! Do you have something of Thor's?"

Loki smirked, catching on quickly. Good thing she wasn't stuck out here with the Aesir Academy's class clown. He came back with a torn up piece of cloth from the pile of his armor inside the cave, a torn up bit of a shirt maybe? Whatever it was, thankfully it was his brother's.

The wolf happily shoved his nose inside the cloth, breathing deeply, instinctively knowing exactly what Loki wanted. He growled, his head jerking, indicating that they should follow.

"We may be several miles away Rose. It might take days to find them," Loki told her. She could take the walking, just as long as the wolf lead them back.

The walked all day, back exactly the way they had come. Or so it seemed to Rose. For all she knew they could be walking somewhere they hadn't been before. All this snow looked the same to her.

Finally, night started to fall and Loki called the wolf to a halt. They would start again in the morning. She felt dead on her feet.

The wolf went out to search for game. Loki started a fire, calling out to him to bring it back. Rose giggled.

"You should name him," she said, rubbing her icy hands in front of the fire. The conjured furs were wrapped tightly around her, keeping her as warm as they could as the snow melted and dried from the heat of the fire. She was so hungry she could eat a whole bloody horse if that was what he brought back.

"Name him?"

Rose nodded, "That's what you do right? With pets?"

Loki stared at her as if he'd suddenly realized that she was completely off her nut, "A direwolf? As a pet?"

"Why not," she shrugged, "I don't think he's going anywhere. I mean, he could have run off or killed us right? But he didn't. So...I figure, he's stuck to you for now. Might as well call him something instead of that great bloody beast."

That's what Loki had been referring to it as all day. He grumbled.

"I suppose. Fenrir. I am fond of that name. That shall be the beast's name until I can rid myself of his presence," Loki said. He whined so much. Always a right royal prat.

"Admit it, you're growing fond of him," she teased.

Loki laughed, "I admit to nothing. I am merely using him. The sooner we find Thor and The Doctor, the faster he shall be gone."

He looked at the ground, moving his leather boot around in the snow, drawing shapes. Rose wondered how long it would take for the wolf to bring back something to eat.

That sat in silence for what felt like hours but was probably mere minutes before Loki spoke again, voice soft.

"When I saw Fenrir running towards you, it was one of the most horrible moments of my life."

Rose felt her breath catch in her throat at the sound of his broken statement. She opened her mouth, lost on what to say. He looked vulnerable and young, younger then she had ever seen him. Not a slightly unapproachable Aesir with delusions of godhood but a child. For the first time since she'd met him, he looked all of those sixteen years he wasn't.

"The knowledge that within mere seconds you would be gone," he continued, refusing to look at her, "I did not think nor plan. I placed myself in front of you, prepared to meet my own end. You would have had time to run. I simply...reacted."

Rose felt humbled, awed. It suddenly hit her, how he'd been standing in front of her. A shield protecting her from her end.

How do you thank someone for that? Anything she could say would be inadequate.

"Isn't that what you boys do? Throw yourself into the fray, chasing glory and protecting maidens?"

That was what Loki had described to her about Aesir culture the night before. He'd told her many things, memories about his childhood with his brother, pranks he'd pulled on the citizens of Asgard, his feelings about being an outsider in a city that did not understand him.

He did not tell her everything. Rose was under no delusions that he would ever tell the full truth to anyone, let alone her. Yet here he was confessing something so deeply personal. Something so strange and alien to him.

The truth was not his friend. Lies were his safety net and he was casting it off little by little around her.

He looked up from the ground, his eyes blurred with unshed tears, wrecked and emotional. They reminded her of the Doctor's, the day he'd told her that he was the last of his kind, something so intimate that she felt like an intruder.

"Yes. So the ideal Aesir shall. I have never been that Rose. There is only one other I have ever performed such a senseless, instinctual act for. My brother."


	8. Chapter 8

**Warnings: **Attempted Non-Con

**Chapter** **Eight**:

Little Eisa, the girl who had found them and brought them along to the village tugged on Loki's sleeve. She was small, perhaps no more than four Midgardian winters. Her hair was as red as her mother's, her skin pale.

Odin's village. Small and dirty, huts built from rotting wood with holes in the ceiling. This was the Midgard of Loki's childhood bedtime stories.

Thor had cheerfully introduced Loki to Bestla. He had heard much of her from Odin, the young woman who'd helped him from the clutches of a Jotun who'd nearly felled him in battle. She'd given him her hearth and help, patching him back to full health. He spoke of her often and fondly.

She was ancient now. Loki had felt stripped down under her gaze, naked and alone. Every mask he had ever worn pulled away until he was nothing but bare bones and shameful truths.

The village had greeted him like a God. It was different then the fond compassion that Rose had given him since they had met, this was a pedestal. Loki was not a man to these small beings, he was a king.

It was a powerful feeling.

He smiled at the child, bending down to look her in the eyes, "Yes child?" A flock of them had begun to gather around where he stood, gazing in awe and fear at Fenrir whose head was lying calmly upon his paws, gnawing at the bone of a deer that Thor had tossed him.

This feast should have felt humbling. He knew Rose would feel humble. The fact that these people gave all that they had to welcome them into their small village, fires drawn up in the hearths of the long community hut in which they held their meetings, should make a man feel humble.

Loki was not a man.

"Is it true...Thor has said...that you have met dwarves," she said, wide eyed. Had he now? The thread that had sewed his lips together was long gone but the scars remained.

Thor had been telling tales had he? Spilling the secrets of the Aesir?

Loki nodded, "I have. They are odd creatures. Malicious beings. The tale should not be for young ears. Why, I would not let even my own daughter Hela hear such a sad tale."

One of the women shook her head, watching Loki with the children. Half-wary, half enraptured.

The children pouted. Loki smirked as he began to think of a new tale to tell them, something much more amusing.

"Did Thor happen to mention the time his enchanted hammer, the mighty Mjlonir happened to be stolen by a Frost Giant named Thyrm?" The children gasped, caught up in the tale. "This Jotun demanded a wicked price for his theft. The hand of the lovely Lady Freyja as his bride. Only then would he return to Thor the hammer Mjlonir."

A crowd of women, children, and men had gathered around him. He was center stage, spinning a web of fiction and half-truths. He told them many tales that night.

Later he watched the men saddle to hunt for supplies. Thor had offered to go with them but they had declined. Gods should not hunt as men do in their eyes. Gods were worshipped; they were above the troubles of tiny mortal lives.

Rose had fallen asleep, exhausted upon a bench. The Doctor sat next to her, cradling her head in his lap. His fingers were carding soothingly through her hair. He had not left her side since they had come to the village.

Loki stood there watching them together, reminded of his father and mother when they were away from the prying eyes of the court. Connected with love and years of being joined together in ruling Asgard. Away from their royal obligations they could be content and relaxed, laugh together like small children or simply hold one another in solidarity. He could not imagine one without the other.

But he could imagine the Doctor without Rose. The Gallifreyan was a clever mask of lies put together with fragile thread that bound together his bumbling, scholarly exterior. He was not so different from Loki himself, both were powerful men held back only by the restrictions placed on them by those they cared about. Only Thor held Loki back from unleashing the retribution he felt that the Imbeciles 3 deserved for their many slights against him. Rose held the Doctor back from tearing the universe to shreds. The relief that had slowly tempered the anger and desperation in the Doctor's eyes as he had embraced her earlier. A precious, irreplaceable treasure returned to his side.

Should not he let himself feel while she still remained to him? Her life was so very fragile. So mortal. Such a clever liar, to pretend he did not feel the same depth of love for her that she did him.

Loki crossed over the room to place his hand upon the Doctor's shoulder. Brown, ancient eyes stared at him, right through him. He often gazed upon Loki that way.

"Bestla has offered the use of her own bedding for Rose to sleep upon. The women would like to tidy up the hearth," he told him.

The Doctor nodded, picking Rose up. It was an effort; strength beyond the body was not one of the Gallifreyan's virtues. Loki made to help, but the Doctor moved away.

"You do her no favor Doctor," he told him. The Doctor raised an eyebrow, mouth opening to protest. What he did not know.

"By lying. One day she will be gone and all that shall be left for you are your memories."

He left the Time Lord frowning after him to go find Thor. He had some words to say to his brother about telling tales to these foolish mortals. The blonde had spent much of his time during the feast reminscing about battles with the warrior men of this village. Loki's eyes narrowed wondering how exactly Thor had described him to these men. Had he moaned about his disappointing little brother to these men of mortal valor?

He passed some of the last men beginning to leave for the hunt, shooting any who glanced at him glares. Let them think of him what they will, he cared not what these mortals imagined in their tiny brains. Talking to the children had been entertaining, spinning webs of false tales comforting after the emotionally draining past few days. Rose was as mortal as these villagers yet what was it about her that made him tell truth? Talk to her, confess to her, but not his own brother?

He loved Thor more than anyone, but it was tainted. Rose was pure compassion, she understood but she did not see. She could never look at a friend, even one as flawed as himself and see the hatred in their heart that was a blight even upon their ability to love. She was a being incapable of deceit, like his brother.

He hated Thor with as much passion as he loved him. Perhaps that was the difference. Why he could tell her but yet not Thor, the very source of his tainted beginnings. From the first time Thor had joined with their cousin Balder in the training grounds and left Loki on his own to now, telling these mortals tales like they were bedtime stories to be told to babes.

He finally found Thor talking to Glut, the woman who'd been graciously housing the Doctor and his brother the past few days while he and Rose had been lost. Fenrir had settled himself to lay next to his brother's feet. Loki had not seen the direwolf accept any other being so quickly besides himself and Rose. Perhaps they were truly connected, though why a direwolf of Jotunheim, lost here no doubt, would bond himself to an Aesir Loki could not comprehend.

Odin had told them when they were young that the bond between a Jotun and a direwolf was similar to that of a parent and their child and rarer still. One of the only wondrous miracles in that realm of monsters.

He bowed his head politely when he finally came to where Thor and Glut were talking, in deference to the woman's kindness in helping his brother but did not speak. She smiled at him uneasily whilst Thor shifted in his bench to look at Loki.

"I shall take my leave of you my Lord," she said, performing a clumsy curtsey to the brothers. Loki waited till she was out of their view before turning to address his brother.

"Brother, I trust these past few days have seen you well," he said. They had not truly gotten to talk since Loki and Rose had arrived at the village earlier, so quickly had they been surrounded by the mortals. Fenrir picked his head up from his paws to pant at Loki. He crouched down to scratch at the wolf's head, feeling the soft, cold fur slip between his fingers.

Thor was smiling at him. It made him want to scowl and lash out at his brother. Did he truly not comprehend that he had told these strange mortals memories that he had no right to toss away? Loki could just imagine their judgment and condemnation as they'd heard the tale of the dwarves pass from Thor's lips.

"These mortals have been as accommodating as father told us. It is truly amazing at how much they remember of the war brother. Bestla was telling me the other day about watching our people best the Jotuns and the hopelessness her own had felt when they had first encountered the giants," Thor told him, grinning broadly.

Loki smiked back at him in semblance of a smile, "I can imagine. These people seem very grateful to have two of the Aesir among them again. One of the children is under the mistaken impression that I am father's brother, not yours. Young Eisa believed me to be Slephnir's mother, I can not imagine where she got that thought."

That misconception he had spun into a bit of a jesting tale, painting himself out to be a mare that had been caught by a giant's steed. These children already feared the Jotun invaders of their grandparents past, and all good fairy tales needed a monster. The greatest falsehood he'd told to the children had come from his disappointment at the thought that Thor had not told the mortals of their true relation, merely just his name, while he'd been away from him. It would sting his brother deeply to know that these mortal's believed Loki to the Jotun blood-brother of the Allfather if one of the children should happen to ask Thor about the tale as they'd asked Loki about the dwarves.

"His mother? The very thought," Thor said, laughing, "Though where one could get the impression you are father's brother is perplexing."

_From you, _Loki thought darkly.

"Indeed. For how much longer are you planning to have us spend here Thor? We have never spent nearly so long in one place since entering the Doctor's company. After days in the wild of this blasted realm I would leave to go explore other options. Spend some time on the TARDIS. Studying the balance of the Doctor's science and my magic needs more time."

Fenrir growled as if sensing Loki's growing distaste. The more he contemplated Thor telling these foolish mortals all about his 'womanly' magic, spilling one of his most painful memories as if it was nothing more than a tale in a book that Rose would read, the more he wanted to scream.

Scant hours here and he felt like he was back on Asgard.

Thor frowned at him, "Relax Loki. You will have plenty of time for that. We are not required home so soon. I have not felt more welcomed in any place we have visited since we have begun this venture, I simply wish to spend a few more days here. I shall persuade these honorable mortals to let me hunt with them! I am eager to put their skills to the test."

"Their skills will be few. The contest will be nothing of note," Loki snapped.

Thor sighed, "What is the matter brother? I have not seen you so upset since before we left home. Did you and Lady Rose quarrel?"

Loki closed his eyes, feeling the anger drain out of him. _Truly brother, you are_ _blind_.

"We did not," he said, "Apologies Thor. It has been a long few days. I am tired."

Thor reached out to touch his cheek, cheerful grin back on his face, "You should rest then brother. Glut has provided generous lodgings for us. On the morrow, perhaps you can teach Einmyria how to calm her father's horse? You are much better at handling such creatures with gentleness than I."

Loki nodded, "If that pleases you."

* * *

"Why have you returned Doctor," Bestla asked him. She was an old woman now. The burden of leading her village had aged her beyond her years. The image of a crone. Wise and ancient.

The Doctor looked up from the Tesseract he'd retrieved from the TARDIS to show her. The morning had seen the Doctor and his companions to her hut at her invitation. They'd taken along Eisa and Einmyria, Loki helping the latter with being a proper little horse rider, Thor smiling with indulgence. Bestla's rheumy eyes had practically glowed at the treasure from Asgard that she had last glimpsed with Odin and his departure from Midgard when the Doctor had presented it to her upon arriving.

"I thought I'd see about the lovely vacation homes. Beautiful beaches Norway has," The Doctor quipped. She gazed at him knowingly. It caused him to squirm; the look in her eyes reminded him to much of Frigga, as if she was looking into the heart of his being.

"You have brought wolves with you Doctor. Have they come to devour my home," she said.

"Well that wolf is a bit big, but I don't think Fenrir can devour your whole village. He'd get a stomachache before he chewed up a quarter of it!"

Bestla chuckled, "I know what he is Doctor. A lone wolf. Disguised as a sheep among the flock."

She'd been there. When Odin had almost left the Jotun babe on Midgard, after they'd left the waste of Jotunheim. They'd come to this village and discussed the babe's fate. She must have heard. The Doctor had lived so very long. He'd forgotten that there were others who might have known. Had never dreamed that they'd been overheard.

"Raised with the flock. As flockish as the rest of them," The Doctor said reassuringly. So he was. No harm would come to this village at Loki's hand. Bestla had nothing to fear from him.

"A wolf may slip among dogs but does that make him one? A wolf's nature is ever fierce and changeable. They live for themselves and their pack and care nothing for the wants and needs of others."

"If shaped right, a wolf can live like a dog," he told her. If shaped right. If given the chance to.

"Tell me Doctor? Did you help shape this Jotun into an Aesir?"

Eisa gasped from by the stove, dropping a pot, looking at them with a horrified face.

"Who is a..." she started to ask in a tiny voice. Bestla shushed her. Distantly The Doctor could hear people shouting. Had there been a successful hunt?

Loki was helping Einmiyra to unsaddle her father's horse. Rose was brushing out some of his coat, the sunshine causing a glare to reflect off the snow. The men had left earlier in the night after the welcoming feast to replenish their supply of food.

"A lone wolf may die. But a pack...a pack will survive. And devour all in its path," Bestla said, frowning at the scene. "Wolves can not be trusted Doctor."

The ground shook. The horse had dropped to the ground; an axe was sticking out of its head. Blood spurted across the snow and stained it red.

All at once, there was screaming. Loki pulled Einmirya away from the corpse to shove her towards the hut where Bestla cradled the frightened child in her arms. Thor let out a battle cry, rushing towards the sudden fray.

The village was being attacked. But not by wolves. It was being attacked by sheep. A hundred sheep with blood stained swords and axes, rage and hate twisting their features, attacking a village left of women and children.

The Doctor met Rose's wide eyes.

* * *

Loki had always reveled in mischief. It made his blood sing and dance like the call to battle and glory set it pumping in Thor's veins. This carnage, this mass of screaming humans, this was not mischief. This was mayhem. No harmless bit of fun, nothing that could be quickly fixed.

This came of freedom. This came of disorder. This destruction. This brutality.

Rivers of blood staining the snow. The sun beating down to shine on the horror. Such carnage belonged to the darkness.

Loki grabbed Einmirya to push her towards the hut. It would do little to protect her from these men. Thor let out a scream of rage, grabbing the sword that had been given to him from one of the village men out of his scabbard and jumping into the fray.

Some women stayed to fight. They were quickly cut down. Loki looked behind him for Rose. He could not see her. Where was she?

The Doctor ran out of the hut. Where was his peaceful weapon now? To deal with this mess.

There was a man rushing from behind his brother. Loki called to his magic, shaping a dagger made of pure ice. His aim was true. The man fell as the blade impacted into the flesh of his thigh. Thor spun around to hack at the man's neck.

Bodies fell. Women and children that he had seen alive just minutes before. Children he had joked and laughed with, who had not seen an outsider but a God, someone sent to protect their village.

How wrong they were. Little lambs caught in the slaughter.

He barred the door of Bestla's hut with his magic. No raider would enter there. Eisa and Einmirya would be safe. Was Rose in there? Had she run inside after he had pushed the little child towards it? No. Rose did not hide from a fight.

She was foolish. He could feel his energy draining as he summoned dagger after dagger, hitting men. His aim was losing focus as he desperately searched the blonde haired bodies on the ground for her familiar features.

Thor took a hit from one of the men. A brave woman managed to hit the attacker with a piece of plywood, knocking him unconscious. His body was left there.

His eyes were blurring. Fenrir was growling, it was as if the wolf could sense his emotions. All the rage and desperation was making him go mad, scenting each body for her smell and tearing at flesh when it was not found.

"Brother! Where are you going," he heard Thor call to him. He did not answer. Thor would win this battle. Even a hundred Midgardian men could not win against the might of the Aesir.

She was out there somewhere.

* * *

He could not find her.

They'd been separated through all the chaos. There were bodies everywhere, children that he had seen listening to Loki and Thor tell tales of Asgard to just last night. Lying cold and still next to the bodies of their mothers. Screaming broke through the silence of the dark night. Screams of the dying and of the invaders.

The Doctor needed to find them. He needed to get her away from here.

These people were no alien threat. They were purely human.

Two boys ran past and through him. The Doctor stared. They had not been real. They were laughing.

_Take him_.

No. No not here, not now. What did she want? What more could be taken? Where was Rose?

The boys turned to look at them. Their eyes were telling him to follow. She was here but why now? Did she have Rose with her?

He ran after them. Where else could he look? Ran after them for so long the battlefield strewn with bodies had been left alone and he felt more and more like he was far away from her. Trees surrounded him, he'd run into the forest that the elders had warned their children to stray far away from. Following two little boys.

Boys who were not real. An illusion. And he was no child.

There was a stream running through the forest. And there was a body lying face down in the muddy water. Far from the battle. He ran over to it, the illusion of The Master and his young self fading.

He knew who it was. A boy who'd long been gone. Buried and forgotten by all but two: The Master, once a child known as Koschei, who'd stood on a riverbank in Gallifrey and asked him what they should do. His eyes had been desperate then. The Doctor had longed to see such desperation fill his eyes in the years that followed.

"_He was just a bully Theta. Why do you feel such guilt over his_ _death_?"

Not the bully's death, regrettable though it was, that he felt no guilt over. But the results of his actions that stemmed from his death. He'd lost his best friend.

He knelt down next to the body, fingers hovering over tuffs of blonde hair crusted with blood. The muddy water seeped into his jacket and the fabric of his pants. "No, no. Wrong, this is wrong. Where is she? Where are you?"

"Show yourself," he yelled towards the sky.

He felt the energy of the air gather around behind him. Her shade had come to torment him. The hair of the corpse turned black. Loki's.

A giggle of childlike amusement came from her, he looked behind himself. Her green eyes stared at him calmly. The eyes of something dead.

"Oh death, oh death," she hummed, the pitch of her voice causing shivers to shoot up from his spine. He felt anger spread throughout his body. Ice hot, like a blue fire that wanted to destroy.

"_Won't you spare me over another soul_?"

She circled around him, singing, to stand next to the illusion of her father's body.

"Stop it," he snarled at her, "Stop it right now! What is this some kind of game? Your sick idea of a joke?" He could still hear the screams of people miles away. Rose was out there. A high-pitched yell, female, mixed in with the others. What if it was hers?

"Is this your revenge," he screamed at her, picking himself up from the mud. He towered over her childlike body.

"The offer. That day. His servitude to you in place of mine," he continued, remembering. She had come to him then, a woman, fully grown. His past, his betrayal of his best friend, letting this woman drive him towards madness in her servitude, bringing her the deaths she craved, this had happened long after they'd stumbled on her as a child.

"Was it your vengeance? Because I stood by and did nothing," gesturing to the illusion of Loki, "Told him nothing?"

What more would she take?

She smiled, the thin path of her lips spreading across the corpse like half of her features, "I needed you to know Doctor. How it felt to be utterly helpless in the face of your guilt. To watch him, your best friend, your companion, pave a path of destruction. Because of you. To know, to understand. Forever trying to save him. Doctor, I reveled in causing you that pain."

All those years, watching The Master. No matter how many chances it was never enough. But he could never stop himself from giving him yet another chance. What could he have been? He could have been beautiful.

"So that I knew, truly knew, you would do nothing."

"I don't understand," he said. And he didn't. There was nothing about this that made any sense. Why him? Why take her revenge on him? Use him? What was her purpose, how did she know to come to him that day?

"Without my actions that day, you might have tried to make a different choice. Save him. I couldn't have that," she said and he stared at her in horror, her face was lit up in childlike wonder, "These are my actions Doctor."

"The humans called me Death. I am the goddess of it. And he will give me such sweet deaths. Like birthday gifts for all those years he was gone from my life. He has such bitterness, such rage. It's beautiful and chaotic. I am death Doctor. I know and I see more than even you. I see everything. The Allfather should have remembered that, the day he cast me away from Asgard."

"I was death before I was even born. Trapped in the void, near the cracks in space and time around Muspelheim and I could feel him, just outside of my reach. So I waited. Angrboða was the perfect host. Her barren womb was shrunken. The perfect plea to answer, the plea for a child. And finally he came. I called to him and he answered me. Longing for a companion, someone to ease the loneliness of his existence. Someone to understand him. Taken away too soon. Like everything else."

The Doctor grabbed at her arms, shaking her, "There is no goddess of death. You're mad. Completely mad. Who are you?"

"You're telling me you've not figured it out? I thought that you were a genius, my Doctor," she smiled. Green eyes. They were burning with a golden fire. The Doctor could feel his heart filling with dread, remembering another set of green eyes similar to hers. Rose.

His hands fell away from her, backing up, "No."

Alone on a spaceship, surrounded by Daleks and prepared to die. Jack fallen somewhere in the lower levels and content in the knowledge that his ancient enemy could not harm her. She was safe. Until she had come back. Eyes like a golden fire, the power of a goddess in her grasp.

"_Abomination...a message, to lead myself...time and space...see the whole of time and space...everything dies_."

"Do you see Doctor? Do you realize? You thought you'd locked it away in a prison of your own creation, but Pandora's Box was already open. Rose Tyler, Bad Wolf, who took in the heart of the TARDIS, pure time and space, all to save you. She hated those Daleks' Doctor, and the power was too much for her to hold. It leaked. So I just slipped away. I was the remnants of her hatred Doctor and the cost of her hubris. Only death may pay for life. It's a fundamental reality of the cosmos."

"_I bring life_." Jack's life. The man who would live from millions of deaths, never ceasing to exist. How many would need to die to balance out his endless life? Millions.

"Why choose him? And why confront me here?" His mind was spinning, racing. He looked at her, the child standing there. His hearts felt like they would burst from his chest.

"Everything is destined Doctor. For I have made it so, but I did not bring you here. Your TARDIS did. It always takes you where you need to go. No matter, all I need, is to get rid of the obstacles in my path. Get rid of those pesky little bit of feelings. Can't have his destiny subverted, all that chaos just boiling underneath the surface. Here is the perfect playground to tear her away." She smiled, a razor like parody of a child's amusement.

She was talking about Rose. If she was the darkest parts of Rose, born from the heart of the TARDIS, content to let Loki give her the millions of deaths the universe demanded, then she needed to get rid of the good. Rose's compassion was the obstacle.

"If you'll excuse me now my Doctor, I must be going. My window is limited," she told him, beginning to fade.

"No," he screamed, running to prevent her escape, force her to stay, but it was useless. The energy from her illusion disappeared from the air leaving it cold and dead.

"Rose," he gasped. Nothing mattered. He had to find her.

* * *

She couldn't stop running.

Face Daleks and Cybermen and Slitheen but she couldn't stop running from a pack of dirty humans. The rage of their face brought her back to the scared teenage girl she had been in London before meeting the Doctor, always looking over your shoulder walking through the dark alleys at night. Her neighborhood hadn't been the best.

These weren't no pissed blokes coming out of a bar after a football match. No they were angry, violent raiders who cared about nothing but food. They'd lost their sense after long years of living in this frozen place with dying crops and other bands of raiders taking their homes.

There was no order here. It was just a vicious cycle of raids and looting.

Her companions were somewhere back in the village. She had to find them.

She couldn't stop running though. If she stopped he'd catch up. The angry man that was chasing her down. Slowly, his English shouts started to lose their coherency, Rose could no longer translate what he was saying to her. She had run too far from the TARDIS.

But she knew their intent. She didn't need a translation for that.

How far from the TARDIS was she? How far from her Doctor and Loki and Thor?

What if they'd been hurt?

She let out a broken sob as her knees hit the hard snow. Her breath was coming out in panic gasps. Her foot slipped into the snow as she tried to get up, panicked, she could hear him getting closer.

She use to carry mace. Not that it'd do much good. So far out from the village, pepper in the eyes would only make him angrier. She looked around in the snow for anything to use as a weapon. A log, a tree branch, a rock. Something to knock him out with.

She cried out as the breath was knocked from out of her with the force of his body slamming into hers. She was screaming, hoping that it would carry. Hoping that they could pick her out from the dozens of other screams that were affecting the air.

His breath smelled like rank old meat and blood was clotting his hair. Bruises began to form from where he was roughly turning her over. She tried to slap at him, tried to slam her knee up where all men were vulnerable.

He had her pinned. Her face stung from the force of his returning blow, "Vakker en. Krigsbytte til Agni. Jeg skal rive deg i stykker, småen."

"Slutt med skrikinga di, jente," the man snarled. He raised his hand to hit her again, but she managed to wriggle a leg out from underneath where it was being pinned to the snow by his own. He felt like a boulder slowly crushing her. With all the force she could muster, she brought her knee up.

He screamed, loosening his grip upon her body. She shoved at him, desperate, pushing him away from her.

"Tispe! Jeg skal drepe deg sakte! Ingen som er igjen i live skal kjenne deg igjen. Jeg skal skrelle kjøttet fra beina dine sakte."

Her feet slipped in the snow, the ice was melting into the furs that she was wearing to keep out the worst of the frost. She could smell blood staining the air around them, feel it all over her.

"Du vil trygle om døden til slutt din lille fi..."

Blood spurted on the ground, spit out from his mouth. Rose stared, watching the light slowly fade from his eyes, his large body bending to fall, limp, face down into the snow. A dagger had embedded itself into his back, a tall form standing over him; face a mask of tightly concealed anger. Ice and fire and rage.

Fenrir snarled viciously, running over to the corpse. His mouth opened as he started to rip at the flesh of the corpse, savage and hungry. Hysterically Rose thought of a scene on tv, wolves hunting down their prey.

_A bad wolf_.

Rose wanted to laugh. She wanted to sob. She could feel herself shaking. Someone was pushing the hair out of her eyes, speaking to her.

"Rose. Rose. You are safe now Rose. He is dead. Rose."

The wolf's _green_ eyes stared at her from where it was ripping at the dead man's flesh. It was like looking into the void. No light, no life, but vast and infinite. Chaotic.

Loki helped her stand. Her feet shook and she wanted to collapse back into the snow. It seemed like a cold blanket, something to hide away in. Someone was laughing. She thought it was her.

She didn't protest when he scooped her up to carry them back towards the village. The dead bodies seemed like pictures in her mind, a dream. Nothing was real. They'd never come here, to this cold, dead place. She'd never come here.

Loki felt like ice and she was so very cold.

The journey back to the village passed in a haze. She supposed she must have fallen asleep or wandered off in her own mind because the next thing she registered was the familiar console room of the TARDIS.

The Doctor was kneeling in front of her. She'd never seen him look so wrecked, her Doctor. Not even in the face of Daleks or caught in the memories of his lost planet. It was real.

Loki was sitting next to her, the lines of his face etched in worry. She couldn't bear to look at him. It would bring everything back, she wanted to forget it. The sight of that man's body falling into the snow, the dagger that Loki had thrown sticking out. He had killed because of her, for her. Had she turned him into a killer?

Fenrir was curled up near their feet. Calm, like a lap dog.

"Home," she managed to say to the Doctor. He knew. He always knew. He moved away to set the controls.

She wanted to go home. She drew the blanket they must have given her closer around herself, staring blankly at the floor.

"Rose." Her hand felt numb inside his own. How long had Loki been holding it? "I'm sorry Rose. I found you as fast as I could. He deserved a far worse fate." Rage. He'd wanted to hurt that man, just like that man had wanted to hurt her.

She met his eyes. The sight of his concern, his anger at the memory, the satisfaction the man's death had brought to them. It was like looking into a mirror into the future. They had changed.

She had wanted to help him. Instead, she had brought him to this.

She turned away, ignoring his gasping pleas.

The golden halls of Asgard had not changed since the day they had left. Perhaps it even was the day they'd left there. Odin and Frigga greeted them, voices concerned, as they left the TARDIS.

She supposed they would seem quite a sight, clothes stained with blood, Thor nursing a wound on his side he'd gained in the battlefield. Fenrir accompanying them close to Loki's side.

"Doctor, what evil has befallen you," Odin asked, his eye moving from one son's face to the other. Frigga called to one of her handmaidens to fetch Eir, the healer woman.

Rose leaned her head against the doorway of the TARDIS. These halls, so beautiful and untouched. Blood dripped onto the floors, a stain that would never come clean.

"Battle father, a battle has befallen us. Men with no honor," Thor announced.

She looked towards Loki quickly, feeling his eyes gazing at her, pleading.

"Doctor, why have we come back," Loki asked, his voice small and confused. Like a child.

"Time to go home I think. Rose and I need to be getting off soon, lots to do at home. I've taught you everything I know. You've been an excellent student," The Doctor said to him, "But classes don't last forever."

"I'm not done yet, I haven't figured out how..." Loki began to protest. The Doctor waved his arms about to silence him. She looked away, towards the floor, her stomach heaving.

"You're brilliant. You'll figure it out on your own. Got all the fundamentals down pat. Rose and I really must be off," he stated, voice firm and uncompromising.

She could see Loki's clothes from where her gaze was pointing. Torn. Red. A hand placed itself on his arm, probably Frigga's. He moved it away.

"I don't understand," he answered brokenly. Frigga was whispering something to him; Rose couldn't hear enough of it to make out distinct words. His voice was so vulnerable, like that night in the caves, had it only been a few days before?

"It's time to move on."

She moved back into the TARDIS. She didn't want to say goodbye. She couldn't. Words seemed like nothing, what could be said? She head Odin asking the Doctor about the Tesseract. He didn't have it.

Lost. Back somewhere in Norway and there it would stay.

The doors closed behind the Doctor, shutting out the sound of Loki and Thor calling to them. She moved to wipe away the tears from her cheeks but they wouldn't stop falling. The Doctor drew her into an embrace, the warmth of his body chasing away the chill in her bones. One arm wrapped itself around her, the other expertly worked at the controls.

It was just the two of them now. The inside of the TARDIS felt still. Like a corpse.

_Just the two of them_...Mickey's voice filled her thoughts, (what was she doing, she should have said goodbye, and he deserved that much, but his eyes...), _like it should be_.

The familiar sound of the moving TARDIS echoed in her ears.

* * *

**Notes**: The Norwegian words I used in the scene with Rose and one of the raiders, loosely translated back to English: ""Pretty one. Spoils for Agni. I shall rip you apart little one." "Stop your screaming wench." "Bitch! I shall kill you slowly! None left alive shall recognize you. I shall peel the flesh from your bones slowly." "You will beg for death in the end you little cu..."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter** **Nine**:

"So, where do you want to go next," The Doctor asked, a poor attempt at a grin on his face. Rose smiled at him woodenly, fingering the necklace that was hanging around her neck, a gift from Loki during an adventure they'd taken to Egypt to visit the library at Alexandria. He had looked stricken when they'd left, the same look that had graced his face several times around his brother and friends, the look that Rose herself had never meant to put there.

"I think we should go back," Rose said, interrupting The Doctor during another one of his speeches about dogs with five ears or something, "I can't...I have to tell him I'm sorry. I lied."

The Doctor's grin fell. He thought about it, what if they picked him back up? Kept him with them, left Asgard and just traveled, brought him back with them. A thousand possibilities swam in front of his head, changing a fixed point in time. Would they still get together? The Earth here needed the Avengers; the Time Lord's hadn't bothered much with this dimension when they had been in a position to do so, let alone now. Human beings would always end up announcing themselves in big ways to the other species that lived out here...and they would always need protecting.

"Rose," he said...how would he explain? To her? He couldn't face looking at her if she knew, knew that he was going to leave the boy to his fate, what the boy would become, her friend. She'd be horrified, her trauma did not need to be added to. The village would rebuild itself, more tales would be passed down through the generations, but the memory would always linger on. Never to be washed away.

_This is my vengeance Doctor_.

No...where to take her? Take her mind off it? Visit her mum?

Their feet slipped out from under them as the TARDIS lurched, moving without him controlling it. They both grabbed on to something to hold as it sped through space. His eyes moved frantically to the control panel, watching the numbers flash by on the screen, "No...no girl no. Not there. Stop this now!" He grabbed at various controls, pushed various buttons but the TARDIS continued moving, the numbers continued changing, he heard Rose say his name over the noise, he slammed his fist down on one of the buttons. Rose head shot forward, hair falling about her face as the TARDIS halted to an abrupt stop. The silence was deafening.

"Where are we? Did you...did it take us back?" Her eyes were wide and she was moving towards the door. He ran after her, trying to intercept her, glaring all around at the TARDIS, seeing the number on the screen of the console. He rarely ever looked at the numbers. Of all the years to take her too...it would break her heart.

"Just a misfire. TARDIS sickness, poor old girl. Come on; come on, planet of dogs with no noses to visit! You'll love it; they will attach themselves to you! Shih Tzu's! They walk like men. Labs that talk...well not talk exactly, it's barking that seems like words formed around half made vocal cords," she was still moving to the door, "Rose!" She opened the door.

The Golden Halls of the Asgard palace surrounded them, exactly the same as they had a few hours ago when they had dropped Thor and Loki back off home. But the place felt older, of course it did. The hall was empty, voices not cheerfully calling out war songs and bards, there was a lone man sitting up on the throne. Locks of grayed hair fell into his face, beard stubble, and lines etched by years of worry and strife etched on to his skin. He looked like a condemned man.

"Doctor," Rose whispered, looking around at the halls she had just left, the people that had cheerfully greeted them gone...and the Allfather, so much older, "when are we?" Was she late? Do apologies count after so much time? Odin was approaching them, every step wearied with effort, and The Doctor was silent. He grabbed her hand and held it tight.

"Doctor. Old friend. Why have you come now?" Odin's voice was abrupt, none of the warm ceremony that had always been in it when they had come before to welcome them. Rose felt like an unwelcome intruder, the feeling she sometimes got around numbers of aliens but not them...never them before.

"Allfather. I'm sorry...I'm so, so sorry," he said. Odin made a noise in the back of his throat, a noise like a growl that echoed like a wounded bear Rose had once seen on tv.

"Sorry. Yes, there is much to be sorry for. You knew of course? You know everything. You who yourself told me that my boys would have a great destiny, all those years and so many faces ago. You never foretold this." Rose had never heard the man speak so quietly. As if the words did not want to leave his lips.

Oh, god...were they dead? Thor had always gone on about battles, the glory of war in his eyes and the honor of his people. Loki would have followed him everywhere. Rose's breath hitched, her mind reeling. She imagined their bodies, cold and still and lifeless, and her mind wanted to turn away from the image.

It became so much worse than death as she listened to them talk.

* * *

He had heard the song as soon as they had come. Even so far away from his prison, the tune hummed in his head, clearer and louder than it ever had before. He had heard many songs like it now, some more chaotic, some darker, but none as powerful or as clear as hers. How fitting, his idols come to witness. Would she stay? The private trial that had locked him in here had already been done, the Allfather had said nothing to his stolen monster as the guards and Thor had dragged him off to his prison. Every luxury afford to a prince of Asgard of course, a fire and a bed, just like his own royal chambers. But void of magic and means of escape. The perfect prison. But the punishment had not yet been dealt out, to find justice fitting enough would take time. Let him plan. Loki had plans of his own.

His mind snarled at the walls surrounding him, binding him. He would bring them to their knees for this. He could see it, the Allfather forced to acknowledge him, with Rose as his right hand. All that power that had been locked inside her mind, the song that had called to him the first day he'd met her, buried all that time. The cuffs around his wrist burned as he strove to access the magic within him, bound by the metal. Blood started to well up outside the cuffs from the effort it took to call his magic past the barrier they created.

He heard the door opened some time later. He knew who it was. Thor came every other morning, desperate, sentimental attempts to reach him, every day his voice growing more and more raging, words turning more and more to despair. Loki let him. Let him feel it, all those emotions swarming around his head for a change. Let him see that there was no going back.

The moonlight made her hair shine as he turned around.

Her face looked exactly the same, down to the tears in her eyes and that wretched expression, the one that had haunted his dreams for years. It made him smile. Questions had long been answered as to why they had left him. He was blind to nothing now.

"Loki," she said, closing the door. She made as if to move to him, to wrap him in a hug but stopped. Her breathing was harsh and coming out in gasps. She was afraid. He frowned for a moment but shook it away. Why shouldn't she be afraid?

"Rose." He made a mockery of a bow towards her, a Prince bowing before an ant. He even gestured for her to sit down, but she remained standing. Crying.

"Why? Why would you...what happened?"

He laughed, "Why not?" There would be time enough to explain. She had always been sympathetic, the only one to ever listen to him. The only one to ever care. He would tell her everything. She would deserve that much.

She looked at him, her eyes filled with sadness.

"This isn't you," she said, gasping, "You wouldn't...you couldn't. Kill all those people? For fun?" So naive. She was so naive. And still so innocent though she had long been keeping the company of liars and thieves and murderers. The song was calling to him, almost overwhelming as he moved closer to her. She was looking at the cuffs around his wrists, the metal torture that kept him confined but no less dangerous. He had still been strong enough to call her.

"People die in wars all the time Rose." Thor had brought a war to Jotunheim and people praised him for it. The Asgardians would have followed him anywhere. Never Loki.

"But that wasn't a war! Those people were just living their lives! And you killed them? For what? The boy I knew would never have..." Rose's voice broke, her hair scattered around her from where she had been shaking her head. He had forgotten how shrill she could get when she was upset.

He smiled at her, "They were nothing. They didn't matter. In war sacrifices are made."

"That was murder, not war," she spat. She looked away from him, as if her eyes could not bear the sight of the monster she had been a friend to. A false friend.

"Your Midgardians have a lovely little poem. Clever, the ants can be clever at times, but morbid. The God of Mischief killed something beautiful and refused to shed a tear for it. In punishment, he was bound to the rocks for an eternity with the bonds forged from the flesh of his own dead child. Killed by his brother. Venom from a snake would forever burn his eyes. Fitting I suppose, for those were the very eyes that refused to share in the grief of the Gods. Tell me Rose, do you think that is what I deserve?"

The Allfather might. He had let the Jotun monster loose into the halls of the Aesir. Why not take a page out of the book of the ants that he had sought to conquer? Would she be his Sigyn? The dutiful helper who kept the poison from blinding him?

"No. No you don't." For the first time since she had entered the room her voice came out with certainty. He recalled the story she had once told him of the enemy of the Doctor, whom she had given respect to in its last hours. A mindless killing machine who thought of nothing else but destruction. She had always had a bit too much sympathy for the devil.

Her hair was a mess. He reached over to fix it. She flinched and he froze, before he continued, tucking the strands behind her ears. She felt warm, alive, and so very fragile. The blonde strands no longer blocked the sadness in her eyes from his gaze.

"Do you remember the last night I saw you? Centuries for me and yet it seems like yesterday. You were merely a spec in my long, long life. The only one that was never a lie," her face had gone cold and still and yes, she did remember, "I remember that human's blood staining the ground. Your screams. Running to save you. I had imagined you would thank me. My friend."

He smirked as he recalled his childish wish, the belief that she would be grateful to be rescued, as Thor's friends had never been and never would be whenever he stepped in front of them in battles.

"You just stared at me. I told myself you were in shock. I know the truth now. That was the lie to myself. There had been no shock. Only disgust."

It was why she had begged The Doctor to take them home. She had wanted to be rid of him. So many years, wondering what he had done. Another thing his compassion had destroyed. What use was it?

This time she reached for him, the warmth and sweat from her hands a shock against his ice-cold skin. Her voice broke, "No. I wasn't. I was scared."

He searched for the lie in her eyes.

"Of me? You should be. I could kill you," she tried to pull away but he was stronger than her and kept hold of her hand, "It wouldn't be much of a fight. Look at you Rose, locked away. He has made you tiny. I can hear it, it wants out. It sings. Such chaos. It drew me to you like a month to the flame. Badwolf. My bad wolf. I know what it is now. All that potential, locked up tight. Forgotten. You could be glorious. Powerful. You could be a Goddess."

Yes. He stroked the metal of the key in her hand. Nothing would be able to stand against them, no opposition. The army of Chituari had been nothing, a nuisance to get rid of. And the mortals had played their part perfectly. With her, he could even shield himself from him..._the Other housed within the void,_seeking his revenge for Loki's failure on Earth.

All she needed was a little push.

"No, she isn't. She's human. Perfect the way she is," the voice came from the open doorway. Rose had never shut the door and he had not noticed. He cursed himself for a fool. Then thanked himself that he had not taken so reckless a chance at escape.

The Doctor had not changed. Had it merely been days for them? Perhaps.

The sight of him caused the rage inside his heart to fester, almost more than the sight of Thor and the Allfather.

"Doctor. Never far away. Been out there the whole time?" Even now, years more powerful, his was the one mind that Loki's could not touch. His equal. His idol.

"I have. Heard it all. Conquerors and would be gods and humans meaning nothing. But you're wrong Loki. So smart, so clever, and yet you'll always be wrong. You're not the first. I've known others like you. Just like you."

Belittling words. There were no others like him. Loki wanted to rip him apart, force him to see, force her to see.

"Liars? Kings? Gods? Certainly, you have. What was it that they called you Doctor? The Lonely God? Not so lonely as long as you have her. You are a brilliant liar Doctor. They call me the Liesmith but I truly learned from masters. You, the Allfather. All that time, you knew everything. Did you ever see me?" Or had he been seeing himself when he looked at Loki?

"I saw you. Saw everything. What you are now...it's a shadow of who you could have been."

"A shadow...yes. Locked in this prison I am. But that will not last."

"You think you can win? You think that being a King will get you the recognition you seek?" Worlds Loki had seen destroyed and devoured, images that had flashed as he fell through space, demons and the void, cold and dead. He had seen Gallifrey, burning. Locked away. So many prisons. And he had seen her, powerful, bad wolf. His dear, loving daughter Hela, guiding his path psychically through the tumbling space and time to exactly what he needed to see.

"Of course. As you should know. I told you once that she was the crutch of your compassion. When she is gone," when she leaves with him, his once friend, he would find her again, "how long until that rage takes hold? It doesn't take much to push it to the surface. It's there now. Holding it back when all you want to do is end my life. If she wasn't here...what would you do? Would you preach about forgiveness then?"

Rose's hand was struggling in his own, which felt almost desperate to hold on to her, "Loki. Let go." Her skin was bruising.

"Let her leave. For the love you once held for her, let her walk out that door. Don't let her see this anymore," The Doctor said, quiet anger is his voice. Sentiment. Loki felt his eyes burn as he heard her choking sobs.

He let go of her wrist. She wasn't ready. She was a blur to him as she ran out the door.

"Do you want to know what keeps me from killing you?" His idol was still here, taunting, "That. You're crying. A monster can't cry. Despite everything, despite all your hate and resentment and rage...you wouldn't have harmed her. If I had felt for a second that you could have, I'd never have allowed her to find you here."

Loki sneered at him, angered, "You think you could have stopped her?"

"Yes. I told her once that a friend of hers was dead for own good. Wouldn't think twice to do it again. Lie. We lie to protect those we care about, remember that."

"Get out." His rage felt like ice in his veins. His magic strained inside him to destroy the man, break him open.

The tears fell long after the Doctor left. His fingers traced the cool metal of the key in his hand. Fools.

* * *

"It was good to see you again Doctor. Lady Rose," Thor said as he escorted The Doctor and Rose back to the TARDIS. The tears had dried from Rose's eyes; she attempted to smile at him. He was so different. But still the same. As gallant towards her as ever, he had told her of his regret that she had to see his brother like this.

Thor had matured. He had learned to care and forgive. Loki had learned to hate, what had been jealousy and resentment had turned black. "You knew everything."

Rose frowned, wondering, '_Were they right? The Doctor could see multiple paths, knew many things. Had he always known_?'

"Wish we could say the same. Circumstances and the like. Lots of problems, you Asgardians have right now," The Doctor said, slipping his hand through his hair.

"My brother...he is not himself. I don't know what has caused this and I fear that there is nothing I can ever do to fix this. I have tried...he refuses to hear or see. He has blinded himself." Thor frowned, and tried to fix a smile on his face. It was as broken as everything in Asgard.

"Don't give up. Never give up Thor. It will be hard. It will take time, and you're going to be disappointed time and time again. Be he's not lost. Not yet." The Doctor shook his hand. Rose stiffened as he hugged her, trying to wrap her head around everything. He seemed to understand.

"Goodbye Lady Rose. I hope one day we meet again with better tidings. Doctor." Thor bowed to them. The Doctor held out his hand and she took it, squeezing. Wondering. She watched Thor walk out the TARDIS doors.

It took a while after they had left Asgard when she finally voiced it, "Was he right? That you knew." Her voice was subdued. The Doctor was bent over the TARDIS console, fiddling with something. Avoiding. He fiddled when he wanted to avoid.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes behind his glasses, "Rose."

Her hands tightened around the bars of the TARDIS, words louder, "Why didn't you do something? Prevented it somehow?" The image of her friend mixed itself with the image of the cold man locked in a prison and she wanted to choke. Was this what the universe was? Cold and indifferent?

Was she doomed to loose friends to it? Jack and Loki and eventually...eventually she might lose The Doctor?

"I couldn't save him Rose. It's fixed. It's done. It's needed. Earth needs reasons for heroes...some things have to happen. I didn't...if I could have, if you could have...I would. But he was never ours to save Rose. You gave him a friend Rose. One of his only friends. Never, ever beat yourself up for that, do you hear that? No matter what, you did some good."

Rose pictured the man on the floor of the village hut from a few days ago. She had wondered, if that had been his first, if she had set him on a path towards easy killing. Nothing, he had called humans. Nothing.

"You told Thor never to give up," she said, latching on to his words, wanting to be able to picture the laughing boy who'd gotten her to dance with a hero at a WW2 dance, "Do you think he can be fixed?"

The Doctor looked down at the console, "No Rose. Some broken things can never be fixed."

She frowned, and he reached over to pull her to him, her head resting against his shoulder as he hugged her close.

"Not fixed. Rebuilt. Don't worry Rose...it will happen."

_Rule number one: The Doctor lies_.

* * *

**Notes**: I have not read the Marvel comics "Thor" or the "Avengers". My small amount of knowledge of their canon comes from internet research. I have not used much of their canon in this verse. My interpretation of Loki's character comes from the filmverse and mythology.

This story is set shortly after the season two episode of Doctor Who "Rise of the Cybermen". I choose to make the Avengers Realm an alternate universe, to which the Doctor and Rose could enter, before the closing of the dimensional walls in Doomsday. I felt it made more sense to do so as the Avengers and Doctor Who verses are not flawless to cross together. I think S.H.I.E.L.D. probably would have been all over the Dalek/Cyberman activity in London if they were the same universe.

I choose to twist the myths to fit in the story. Fenrir, the direwolf that attaches itself to Loki in this story, in mythology was his son. Angrboða has been retconned into a Fire Giant of Muspelheim in this story, because let's face it, Marvelmovie verse Loki wasn't going to be going willingly near a Frost Giant. Hel, in the myths is the Goddess of Death, and so she remains in some ways in this verse. Interesting little tidbit is that Thanos, the man revealed post-credits in the Avengers, is canonically in love with Death. Glut and Loge (the Norse family who takes in the Doctor and Thor) in traditional mythology are Gods connected to fire. Loge (Logi), though often a separate deity, is sometimes connected as being another name for Loki. Eisa and Einmyria are their daughters. Bestla in mythology is the Frost Giant mother of Odin.

So yeah, the fic is complete. I have left it a bit open-ended in case I ever decided to write a sequel to it.


End file.
